


Of Earth, Eternal

by furiedheart



Category: Chris Hemsworth - Fandom, Tom Hiddleston - Fandom, hiddlesworth - Fandom
Genre: Chris does not ask Tom's permission every time they have sex, Companionship, Demon!Chris, Dreaming, Dubious Consent, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Jealousy, Loneliness, M/M, Mischief, Past Lives, Possessiveness, Protective Instincts, Psychics, Rough Sex, Supernatural Elements, human!Tom, myths, paranormal elements, preternatural elements, sex dreams turn out to be real, sex while half-conscious
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-30
Updated: 2015-03-30
Packaged: 2018-03-20 08:29:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 37,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3643557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/furiedheart/pseuds/furiedheart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tom moves into a new house and discovers he's not as alone as he thought. </p><p>I came out of the woods by choice. ~ Mumford & Sons<br/>I will call you by name. I will share your road. ~Mumford & Sons<br/>But I still love to wash in your old bathwater. You make me feel like I couldn't love another. ~No Doubt</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Earth, Eternal

**Author's Note:**

  * For [duskyhuedladysatan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/duskyhuedladysatan/gifts), [cunninglingus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cunninglingus/gifts).



> This story was inspired by [this](http://half-ancient.tumblr.com/post/114993069813/iamlokiofjotunheimr-lokeanconcubine) comic. As I came closer to finishing it I realized I really like the boys in any kind of forest setting lol. This was so much fun to write! My imagination was going haywire. I can't thank my beta, [duskyhuedladysatan](http://duskyhuedladysatan.tumblr.com) ENOUGH. You are the most wonderful and I love you. CRAG. Another big thanks to [Teresa](http://teresa-dances-in-sequins.tumblr.com) for letting me squee with her at all hours of the day. You're fantastic, little bear. Thank you!
> 
> This one is for you both <3
> 
> Warnings for: early, rare moments of dub con. 
> 
> [This](http://www2.pictures.zimbio.com/bg/Tom+Hiddleston+2012+BAFTA+Awards+afterparty+FA3TjwFloR0l.jpg) is Tom. [This](http://img.deseretnews.com/images/article/mcontentimage/726729/726729.jpg) and [this](http://cdn01.cdn.justjared.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/leo-bafta/leo-dicaprio-bafta-tea-chris-hemsworth-12.jpg) is Chris.

The house was nice. And just within his budget. His real estate agent told him that it was actually underpriced, but didn’t go into too much detail. Something about the last owners backing out of their contract early and the house being upside down. The bank was eager to sell it, as it had sat empty for almost eight months before Tom first toured it, nose turned up at the ceiling, sniffing out something mild like ferns or white-petaled clumps of moss. The interest rate was lower than he could have ever hoped to afford with his first home, so he was happy to make his offer.

“People have backed out before,” his agent muttered, stuffing papers inked with Tom’s still-drying signature into his briefcase. He popped his head up with a big smile and a calm sigh. “But this is great news for you! You’ll be able to move in within the month, once the bank has approved everything. I don’t see why they wouldn’t. You’re an ideal candidate. I’ll keep you informed.”          

And now here he was. Six weeks and three days later, all the utilities turned on and his belongings arranged in a semi-order. Sofa and recliner before the television. His dishes stacked in the cabinets. Pans hanging from hooks on the wall. His bed and dresser in the master bedroom, a cavernous room with a personal bathroom that had a clawed-foot porcelain tub and a green plastic sheet that swept around it like a giant skirt.

Hiking up long yellow gloves on his arms, he’d spent all of last weekend cleaning, scrubbing every sink and toilet, every drain and tile edge, dragging a vacuum over the carpet in the den and dining area, pausing once to stare up at the ceiling where he’d thought he heard a muted thump. He sifted up the strange clear residue stuck to every single wooden window ledge, trying to chase that woodsy scent through every room, wondering if it was embedded somewhere deep in the walls where he couldn’t reach. It wasn’t unpleasant, this smoky aroma; he rather liked it, actually. But why he couldn’t find the source was baffling. Splashed on the walls were random smudges of some kind of liquid that he would never have noticed had he not walked by the living room at just the right moment, the sunlight filtering in through the windows and striking the stains brightly, splattered and oddly shaped. Trying not to contemplate what that liquid might be, he took a rag and disinfectant to every single wall, collapsing in exhaustion by Sunday night but feeling significantly better about his new home.

He’d buffed the scratch marks along some parts of the wall – low to the floor, horizontal and odd – but he could tell they were still there. His agent had made some offhand remark to Tom’s question about them, a little exasperated saying, “They kept removing them, but—.” He trailed off, and Tom half-wondered what his agent had left unsaid. “In any case, the bank is selling as is, so you’ll be able to make any improvements you’d like after the purchase is final.”

His old place emptied out and keys turned in, Tom drove his car to the grocery store and loaded up on the necessities: milk, eggs, bread, ham and cheese, some butter and jams and biscuits, vegetables and soup. It would be his first night staying at the new house, and he wanted to make sure he didn’t need to leave for the entire weekend while he organized the last of his stuff. His books still needed to be alphabetized in the downstairs study, his movies stacked properly in the TV stand, his shoes and shirts and trousers hung up without a wrinkle. Already he was forgetting where he put things in their temporary places. He found his electric razor and deodorant in the box he kept his holiday decorations in, shoved back into the corner of the small storage room under the stairs where he breathed in sandalwood and fern. Retrieving them with a noise of confusion, he put them back in his bedroom where he thought he had placed them to begin with. The sooner his things were in the right order the better.

Turning onto his new street, _Estrella y Sol_ , the name rolling off his tongue so nicely when he whispered it to himself, Tom peered up at his new house.

An A-line bungalow built in the forties, his house was made of red brick and white wood, a blanket of leafy green vines hanging off the east wall. Two large bay windows bracketed the front door edged by a cozy front porch with three sturdy wooden stairs leading down to a circular drive that rounded off from the street. He’d met one of his two neighbors, a man named Brad, who’d come over to introduce himself the week before and offered to help unload boxes. One of those strong and silent types, Brad had followed him inside with a barely shuttered wide-eyed glance about.

"Nice place,” he said, a little too casually, as if he’d been dying to check out the inside of the house for ages.

"Thanks,” Tom had said, pointing to where Brad could drop the boxes.

"Let me know when you need help moving out,” Brad said as he left a while later, shaking Tom’s hand with two solid pumps and then walking down the drive and over to his own house next door, where a wife and two teenagers waiting in the garage, peering over at Tom.

Tom had thought that a rather curious thing to say to a person who had just moved into a new house, but he’d brushed it off and went on with his unpacking. Maybe Brad had an odd sense of humor, but he seemed curt enough to be a nice guy that wouldn’t turn into one of those meddling types that forced themselves onto people. Tom liked his privacy, no matter the politeness that was the cornerstone of the education his mother gave him.

Too tired and busy for anything fancier, Tom put a frozen pizza in the oven and continued organizing his bookshelves. An older album by _The Cure_ playing on his stereo system, Tom sang along under his breath, piling his books in high towers, sorting them by last name and genre.

Quite suddenly, the entire living room went quiet, his hummed attempts at singing trailing off as he turned with a start. Frowning, Tom rolled off his seat and stood, eyes narrowed on the stereo system. Its face dark, no lights indicated it was still powered on. Curious, he checked the wires in the back and then found them all to be connected properly, save for one that was a little loose. Hoping it wasn’t something faulty with the electrical outlet, he pushed the ‘On’ button and the system hummed back to life.

“That’s odd,” he murmured, pressing ‘play’. It was as if the stereo had been turned off with a push on the power button. But that wasn’t possible. Maybe there was something wrong with the player itself – maybe it had been jostled in the move. Maybe he needed to buy a new one, remembering when he’d purchased this one almost four years ago.

In the corner of his eye, movement low to the ground drew him round – expecting a rat, a possum, _something_ – but there was nothing there, only the sofa and the entrance to the hallway.

"I need to sleep,” he muttered, heading into the kitchen where the oven announced his pizza was ready. He ate slowly at the center island, swiveling listlessly on the stool, licking at his fingers and downing a few beers before his exhaustion got the better of him and he headed to his bedroom. The tub in his bathroom was a lovely piece of craftsmanship, white-enameled porcelain with clawed feet and that wraparound curtain. Like being in a bubble of green foliage. Lying back in the hot water, he could stare up at the overhead light and pretend it was the sun, verdant trees rising up all around him, maybe a breeze on his face.

Minutes passed, or maybe an hour, but a small splash raised him from his doze and he blinked blearily around the enclosed space. Must have been his own foot, he figured, sliding the wet green curtain to the side and standing with a groan. Water dripping down his nude body, he patted himself dry and stepped out of the tub, careful not to slip on the tile. His arms and legs ached, his mind buzzed with fatigue, and the beer had settled sweetly in his gut. Ready for bed, he crawled under the sheets and collapsed against his pillows with a tired moan. Vaguely, on the cusp of slipping behind the murky veil of sleep, he heard the faint sound of another splash, the bathroom door cracked open a foot, all darkness just within.

**

He slept so deeply and so soundly that he didn’t wake once during the night. Undisturbed by dreams, he woke up feeling rested but even more sore than the day before. Staring up at the ceiling, he lay for a moment soaking up the feel of the place, the way the light webbed over the blue walls, the bark of a dog somewhere outside, distant. And his house creaked, and it settled, and he lay there listening, wondering when he would get used to it. He finally pushed himself up with a sigh and stumbled into the bathroom. He was surprised to see that he forgot to unplug the bottom of the tub the night before. The water sat cold and halfway down. Around the base of it were splotches of drying puddles.

He frowned. Had he done that? Spilled water everywhere when he climbed out? Had he been that tired? That tipsy? Still rather listless, he dropped a towel to the floor to let it soak, moving his leg in half circles to clean it all up. After brushing his teeth, he changed into a pair of worn jeans and an old T-shirt from college, wanting to finish his bookshelves and move on to other parts of the house. By noon his stomach was growling, and as birds twittered in the tree just outside in his backyard, Tom prepared himself some soup and a sandwich and a little pasta salad.

Sticking with water this time, Tom ate and craned his head to better feel the gusting wind coming in through the kitchen window, the tree canopy swaying sweetly just outside. Somewhere in the living room, his phone started ringing, a bright chirping that he’d been meaning to change for a while. Dropping his sandwich, pasta noodles bouncing off the plate, he ran to answer it.

“Hi mum,” he said, wiping his mouth with a napkin. Here was her obligatory phone call.

“Tom honey. How are you, love?”

Peering out the front window, Tom nodded. “Fine, fine. All’s well. Still settling in.”

She made a pleased sound, so far away. “Lovely. How’s the house? Have you met any nice people since moving in?”

"My neighbor Brad came over to introduce himself. Helped me bring in some of my stuff. Has a wife and two kids next door. They seem nice enough.” He glanced around the front room. “The house is great. A little spooky. All these echoes and unexpected creaks.”

She laughed, big and throaty. “I felt the same way moving into our house almost, goodness, thirty- two years ago now. I was twenty. We had you a year later. But I remember the strange feel of the house. The newness. I slept so terribly for the first month, waking every hour, hearing things. Your father, though. He slept fine.”

Tom smiled, rubbing his elbow. He scratched at one of the walls, sniffing the surface, detecting there the faint smell of crushed creosote and wet wood, half-hearing as his mother told him about what she and his father had been getting involved with, a community organization that fostered gardening as stress relief. He hummed in sad bemusement. They were always participating in something or other. He certainly remembered feeling second to their participation in town events. It was part of the reason why he left home months before he actually turned eighteen. They wouldn’t miss him. He was content in the thought that they had each other with which to share all their interests.

They finally hung up after he promised to ring her again the next day. Sighing, he returned to his meal and finished it quickly, munching on the pasta salad quietly.

Yet, something nagged him in the back of his mind. It wasn’t until he was rinsing his dishes that he realized what it was. All of the pasta noodles that had spilled to the counter when he ran for the phone were on his plate when he returned to the kitchen. The fine hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, and Tom turned slowly to look over his shoulder at the center island, its swirled granite countertop sprinkled with the splotches of sauce left behind to prove his sanity.

**

He was willing to explain the noodles to his own imagination. Maybe he hadn’t actually spilled any, and only thought he had. But the more he contemplated it, the more he started to believe maybe it wasn’t all in his head. The stereo, the misplaced electric razor and deodorant, the tub.

Tom had lived alone before. Staying on at borderline decrepit tiny studio apartments most of his time at uni, it wasn’t until he was twenty-two that he managed to rent a decent sized one above the post office near the downtown district. Pushing through nine years at the publishing house, he never felt the need to move from his small little bubble until he was transferred to the biography/autobiography department, which had a smaller branch office north of him, closer to the edge of the city. Farmland and great big fields with tall trees bordered the neighborhood he finally decided to settle in, the houses spaced wide apart from each other, the woods crooked and a bit wild. An old part of the country. Mostly families and older couples, Tom felt rather like a sore thumb but he loved the house and was excited about being able to purchase his first home all on his own.

He and Mikael had considered moving in together somewhere around the time he was twenty-six or twenty-seven. But that petered out when his feelings for Mikael began to change and eventually dwindle into nothing. He couldn’t begin to pinpoint what had gone wrong, and he preferred not trying, as it saddened him. There was a box around here with old letters and pictures of the two of them. A blanket they’d liked to share. Teddy bears and old cut out hearts from shared valentine’s at school. Throwing it all away would have been better, but dragging it all with him seemed the path of least resistance. The room under the stairs was the best place to store it for now, confident they would be out of sight and out of the way.

Thinking he shouldn’t sit too long on his strange thoughts about the house and the less than satisfying last few years of his life, Tom stepped outside. His backyard was big and plush with green grass. High brick walls lined the property, with a metal gate leading out into the wider expanse of fields. Treetops darkened the far horizon.

A low enclosure at the corner of the yard would be ideal for a garden, and he thought he could start working on it in a week or so, send his mother some pictures as it developed. Maybe she’d like that.

**

That night, after a small dinner and a relieved sigh at his organization, Tom stayed awake during his bath. Curtain crinkled open a crack, he stared out into his darkened bedroom, at the vague outline of his bed and bureau drawer. Curls moist along the brim of the tub, Tom lay in a suspended half doze, a glass of wine balanced on his chest, the base sitting under water, the fragile stem rising up to curve into the bulbous bowl where his wine trembled gently with every breath he took. The effect of the alcohol was making his fingers and toes so warm, a soft tingling swelling up his neck and bubbling into his brain, cozy and fluid. There wasn’t anything like it. Well, there was but—.

He may have giggled quietly, watching the wine slosh in the glass, or maybe he imagined it when just outside the tub he heard the distinctive slide of something move against the porous tile floor. Did the shower curtain twitch? Blinking, Tom smiled, lips drawing up at the corners, the light from the bathroom bleeding onto the soft carpet of his bedroom.

"Is this house haunted?”

He rolled his eyes to glimpse the inside of the mossy bathtub womb, and back again toward his bedroom. Only now, he had the distinct feeling that he was being watched, a prickling between his eyes, scalp tightening.

“Am I being haunted right now?” he asked a little more quietly. “Are you there? Hello?”

Nothing. No movement, no sound, only a tickle along his skin. Snatching the wine glass off his chest, he downed the rest of it and snapped the curtain around the tub closed.

**

He was sweating. The room was warm and the windows were shut tight, and somewhere on the carpet was a soft scratching noise, a thump on the baseboards of his bed. Murmuring, Tom rolled over, still half-asleep, fatigue weighing heavy on his mind, his limbs sluggish.

Scratching? A thump? What was that? Fear tickled a chill over his skin, acute and alarming, rousing him from the deeper pull of his dreams.

Opening his eyes, vision smeared with the residue of sleep, Tom squinted into his dark room illuminated only by the pale and weak light of the moon crisscrossed by the jumping leaves of the tree out back. Nothing. There was nothing. Get a grip. You’ve lived alone before. He was about to relax back against the pillows when he spotted it.

There at the edge of his bed, rising from beneath his eye level, was a shape. Firm and black in the murky light, it crawled up onto the mattress, great big hands clutching at the sheets to draw itself further up, up. Big and dense. Solid.

Tom’s heart dropped to his stomach, eyes popping out of his head, and the smallest gasp escaped him as this shadow crept to loom over him.

“Help,” he croaked just as the shadow dipped low and sniffed along his neck.

Voice caught in his throat, Tom froze, eyes wide on the figure. Someone had broken in. Someone had waited until he was asleep and—

Soft hair draped over his face as the person mouthed over the side of his neck, a rough, greedy, hard mouth. So heavy. So _big._

“Wait—p-please…”

A stuttered sort of vibration echoed out of the person’s chest, deep like a growl, low and soft like a purr. Tom jerked away, frightened and panicked, heart lodged somewhere in his esophagus, but his wrists were seized in a tight grip, the soft clicking of teeth just in front of his face.

And then lips were on his, rough and bruising. Tom screamed, muffled and useless, kicking his legs, hips bucking to throw the person off. It was a man. He could tell, by the scent and weight and strength of him, that he was a man. Plus, he couldn’t ignore the hard ridge of a penis nudging his own.

A whiff of the man’s scent rose in his nostrils and Tom froze again, inhaling. Something woodsy and moist with moss, something soaked in rain and sandalwood, something ancient and fertile. Something familiar, something that lingered throughout the house, something he’d been smelling since the beginning.

But before he could think on it, his legs were kneed apart and the person settled between, a wide and wet tongue pushing between his lips. As much as he didn’t mean to, Tom’s tongue thrust in alongside the man’s, the squishy muscle giving way to the telltale points of teeth, all sharpened like canines.

Terrified, confused, Tom tore his head to the side with a broken cry and tugged at his wrists, legs jolting, but the person held him down with ease, and Tom collapsed back with ragged breaths, heart galloping, eyes wide in the dark.

“Stop…just—.” He gulped in air. “Please. Whoever you are. I won’t…I won’t _say_ anything—.”

Lips on his again silenced his pleas and Tom sobbed quietly, chest jumping in fright, fingers grappling at open air. Lips free again, they stared at each other. It was too dark, too dark to see anything, but there was enough light to glint off eyes big and strangely glowing, focused directly on him. Hair long, shoulders wide, the man pressed his hips low and Tom moaned, lashes heavy with tears fluttering closed.

The purring deepened, teeth clicking quietly, and the hold on his wrists loosened. Swallowing thickly, Tom took in a shaky breath, thighs falling open around the man’s hips. Big hands roamed down each of his arms to his chest, fondling the soft hairs there, rising to cup at his neck. He massaged the skin gently, gaze intense, seemingly fascinated by his neck’s smooth texture. And then he dipped down and kissed Tom’s throat, lips parting to suck at his Adam’s apple, down each side and back to the center again, breathing warmly there. Chin lifted, frozen, Tom kept his eyes glued on the ceiling, hoping he wouldn’t die that night. Still, the touching was nice, despite the terror coursing through him. He hadn’t been touched in so long, couldn’t help how he reacted now. And that scent, permeating over him, seeping in and under. He wanted to drown in it.

The man shifted and sniffed at his cheek, rubbing his nose along Tom’s jaw almost affectionately. Trembling, Tom could only lie there, heat flushing his face as his body began to respond. Mouthing at his neck again, those strange and sharp teeth clicking as he drifted lower on Tom’s belly. Long fingers clenched on the band of his pajama bottoms, yanking them down and off Tom’s legs. They landed in a clump on the floor. Tom gasped, head lifted to see what the man was doing, but it was so murky, so indistinguishable. And then a hand was on his semi-erection, palming it and squeezing. A curious little noise made him blink fast as fingers fondled at his balls and the root of his cock, furred in dark blond hair, soft and malleable. Tom hissed and dropped his head back, mind beginning to spin, confusion warring over his heart.

“Easy,” he managed to whisper, whining when a long finger slid down his perineum and between his cheeks. “ _Easy.”_

There was that vibration again, that rumble that he felt even in the short hairs along his legs. A broad thumb pressed against his entrance and the vibration suddenly stopped. A space of time passed where Tom was sure that their eyes caught each other’s in the dark, but it was hard to tell. Tom was suddenly hauled a foot closer over the sheets, big hands gripped tight around the front of his thighs, parting his legs roughly, bending him nearly in half.

He was still moist from his bath a short while ago, but when the spongy head of a cock nudged at his entrance, Tom’s heart clenched in worry.

“Wait a minute, wait!” He pushed back on the man’s hips, blanching at the power he felt coiling there. “Slow. Please slow.”

A tiny noise, like understanding, cracked from the man’s throat, lifting a hand to palm at Tom’s hair, petting at him, hush now. He fell back over Tom, noses bumping, chests flush, gripping his head to hold him still. And then he started to push in, slowly, so slowly.

Mouth falling open, choking on the pain, Tom arched, hands flying to the man’s waist, holding him tight. Forehead to his temple, the man purred, clacking his teeth, engulfing Tom in his presence. He breached finally, broad head slipping in, and Tom recoiled, held in place by those long arms.

“F _uck,_ ” he groaned, the fit so tight, throbbing with hurt. Still, the man pushed on, lips trailing over Tom’s cheek and down to his jaw, kissing him lightly, the bite of teeth so minimal. His hips drew away and Tom yelped, tightening his arms around the man’s back, the feel of short nubs, like blunted spikes, bumping along the man’s spine.

“Mph?” Tom spread his hands open, dragging them up that broad back, horror and fascination widening his eyes, stealing his breath. Bumping along, his fingers spanned in a straight line up between the man’s shoulder blades, where long hair caught under his palms like fine spider webs. Higher he searched, over the round curve of the man’s skull, over the crown of his head, where something rough like stone or dense wood grew in two arched spikes.

“I’m dreaming,” he whispered, flinching as the man’s hips jutted forward, sinking himself into Tom’s wet heat. “I’m dreaming. And this isn’t—.” He hissed, grimacing. “—real. He’s not real.” Quick and stuttered laughter burst from him. “He doesn’t have _horns_. How ridic—.”

The man growled low and Tom squeaked as he was anchored close, starting a quick fuck into him, a little harder, wilder and desperate. Tears blurring what little sight he had, Tom clung to the man, gripping his hair, the rough patch of horn scraping over his fingers. His cock, bent snug over his pelvis, grew fat with need, filling with a yearning unfelt in such a long time.

“Okay,” he breathed, nodding, gasping around the suffocating weight of the man. “Okay. Just…” He inhaled, holding his lungs tight before releasing the air shakily. “Just breathe.”

Grunts in his ear, one big hand on his forehead and the other holding his leg wide, trapped under this great hulking thing, Tom let the ribbon tangled so tightly in his gut begin to simply unravel. Warmth swelled in his veins, his fear subsiding as he gave in to this sordid delusion, body relaxing in slow increments so that the pain was vastly lessened, taking the man’s girth with better ease.

“Oh,” he moaned, nosing into the crook of the man’s neck, breathing in that dank scent of burnt wood and crushed, humid creosote. “Oh please. I must—.”

His cock burst so suddenly, pulsing thickly over his own hipbone, and he screamed, scratching at the wide fan of shoulder blades above him. And the man, moving faster now, pounded into him hard, the passage made smoother now, the pain nearly gone. An ache, a twinge with each thrust, Tom accepted them willingly, soaked with buzzing endorphins, so entrenched in his daze, convinced this wasn’t real. He was drifting, and it was nice, and this wasn’t real.

The man seized, teeth snapping shut, buried deep and pulsing. Oh there it was, there was the gush that Tom so remembered and loved. Maybe he was lonelier than he thought. Maybe his lies to himself had finally caught up to him, manifesting in this dangerously borderline real hallucination.

Maybe he needed to stop drinking.

Finally, it was over and the man was pulling out, Tom sobbing at the drag. Moist kisses on his cheek, fond caresses over his face and neck, it started to retreat, this shadow, slinking off to the side of the bed. Tom, surprised and a little disappointed, followed it with his eyes. It kept a tight grip on Tom’s hand, reluctant to let him go, until it was over the edge at last, sinking below his line of sight, hand rasping over Tom’s knuckles and gone.

Sore and sweating, Tom scrambled up to his elbows and rolled to the edge of the bed, peering down. And there, disappearing under the skirt of the mattress, was the pale slip of an arm, fingers spread half-curled in farewell.

**

Sunlight slanted over his face and Tom scowled, cracking an eye open. It was daytime and his room was flooded in gold, the bathroom doorway edged open to a dimmer dark just within. Groaning, he pushed up on his elbows and immediately winced. He was tender between his legs and his stomach was laced with dried cum. How had he done that to himself, he wondered, skimming his hand over his aching bottom.

A little unsteady, and surprisingly naked _,_ he rose to his feet and limped into the bathroom. He wiped at his stomach with a washcloth and splashed water on his face before he brushed his teeth, peering into the mirror with growing alarm.

His neck was mottled with a growing bruise that looked startlingly like an actual hickey. Spitting and rinsing his mouth, he craned his neck and touched his skin, muttering in shocked disbelief. Nudging at it, he winced because _so tender._ Dressing wasn’t any better. His muscles pulled tight in a way that reminded him of how he used to feel after a good fuck with Mikael.

He paused.

The man in his dream. The intruder. He was only just remembering.

Glancing about the room, sniffing out the telltale scent of sweet wood smoke, Tom wondered. But then he bent double with a weary laugh, shaking his head. Surely it had been a dream, however extremely vivid. And he’d moved a lot of boxes and furniture around the last two days, squatting and pushing and lifting – that had to explain his soreness. Nothing more. Still, as he descended to the first floor, one shaky step at a time, he couldn’t deny that he was in bad shape. Maybe the wine had spoiled. Did wine spoil? He’d only had a few glasses. Like six maybe. Or nine.

He sighed and rubbed his face. He had work today, but wouldn’t be going in until noon. Taking his laptop from the study, Tom prepared himself a late breakfast and answered some emails from the company. It would be a typical nine to five, same as his old position, only now he lived closer and there was less noise and fewer street sounds. Here, he got fragrant breezes and lawnmowers and screams of playing children in the streets. It wasn’t terrible.

After eating, he hobbled back upstairs and sat in his bath for a spell, blinking at the overhead window, casting his bubble of moisture in green. Another thump somewhere in his room roused him and he cursed quietly, thinking maybe there was a possum or something living in the walls, scurrying everywhere and digging its nests. Unstoppering the plug in the tub, he dried himself and hurried into his room. Tugging on a pair of dark blue trousers, trying not to wince or rub at his pelvic bone, Tom matched them with a plain white button down and a tie striped white and blue. In the bathroom, he put some gel into his hair and ran his fingers over his scalp hoping to control his curls. It was in the reflection behind him that he saw it. The tub, shrouded with its plastic curtain of green, was still full of water.

“What?” He turned and stared down into it, the stopper firmly in place at the base. “Shit.” He didn’t want to undo the buttons at his cuffs and roll his sleeve up just to let the water drain. He was already short on time and he wanted to get there early. Ignoring it, he gathered his briefcase and shrugged into a light jacket. Not entirely comfortable leaving a bath full of his old water, Tom made a note to scour the claw-footed beast when he got home.

He walked downstairs patting his pockets for his wallet and mobile and—

“Keys,” he murmured, glancing at the hook by the door. They were gone. Half-turning, head cocked, Tom scanned the living room. Nowhere. He checked the kitchen and dining room. He checked the study and the washroom. Angry now, he limped up the stairs and saw the glint of a silver key ring just under the mattress skirt of his bed. “How in the world—.” He grabbed them up and went back downstairs, thinking he must have dropped them there sometime during the weekend, as improbable as that seemed now.

Across the way in the other drive, Brad was getting into his own car, but he paused upon seeing Tom, staring rather openly at him as Tom fished for the right key. But when he noticed the other man, he lifted a hand in an easy greeting, Brad hesitating a second before waving back.

Work was better than he hoped. There was always the bite of trepidation starting at a new place. Working almost a decade at his old position had spoiled him. But his coworkers were all smiling, welcoming people and his boss, Everett James, gave him a tour of the branch and showed Tom his small office.

“We take autobiographical slash biographical work here seriously,” Everett said from across from him.

Tom nodded. “Of course.” He hoped the collar of his shirt was hiding his bruise well.

“Fiction is just as important,” Everett said, laughing quietly. “But these are no made-up tales. These are the histories of our people, and people from around the world who are relevant and deserve to have their stories read. You’ll have to switch that mindset when editing real-life stories. But Shaun assures me you’ll do just fine with us.”

“Thank you, sir,” Tom said, smiling and trying not to fidget in his seat. He really should have taken something for the pain. “I’m very confident I’ll do well here, too. It’s all a matter of switching that mindset, just as you said.”

Everett smiled and patted his shoulder.

He settled in at his office, giving the place a quick cleaning before sitting at his desk and opening his first manuscript. He tried not to roll his eyes at the pretentious title. He knew the man from newspaper clippings. Some stuffy old Member of Parliament who was set to retire at the end of the year, always scowling under his bushy eyebrows. Wonderful.

It didn’t rain that day but Tom felt wrung out all the same. Winds picked up, bowling over trash bins, scattering papers and old soda cups across the lot. Loosening his tie, he climbed into his car and drove home. Eyes bleary, he baked another frozen pizza, and ate only two slices with three cups of wine. Upstairs, shedding his jacket and tie and unbuttoning his shirt, Tom stared into the tub for the second time that day, eyes narrowed on the dirt gathered at the bottom, set in swirls that were really pretty when he thought about it, like the sifting bed of a river or lake.

How on earth did dirt get into his tub? Was there a window open somewhere? Did the winds rush in through a crack?

Too tired, he drained the tub and started up the showerhead fixture above, rinsing his body quickly, watching the dirt disappear between his toes.

**

The winds buffeting the house woke him, or maybe it was the warm mouth on his cock. Tom groaned and rolled his head on the pillow, brows furrowed. Oh, the tug was good, so wet, the tongue spread wide under the big vein, the tip flicking in at his slit, savoring. Hands clawed in the sheets, Tom arched and rolled his hips, loving the feel of wide hands on his belly, holding him down.

“Yes,” he moaned, blinking his eyes open and not seeing much. The shifting shapes of tree branches on the wall, swaying every which way in the wind, a dim moon behind amassing clouds. Deep he was taken, to the back of a throat, a gentle purring. Tom rocked, eyes clenched, balls drawing up. “Please, please, please.” He reached down and felt the person’s head, the long hair, the jutted horns. The eyes that blinked up at him were rimmed with glowing rings. “Oh,” Tom mumbled, half asleep still. “It’s you again.” And then the man swallowed and Tom came with an echoing shout, the branches snapping against his window. Skin buzzing with pleasure, vision dotting with sparks, he was flipped quickly onto his stomach, hips dragged back.

These dreams, he liked them, however explicitly vivid they were.

“Are you…are you going to fuck me again.” His slurs amused him and he giggled into the sheets before choking on a scream as the man pushed in. “Fuck. Give me a—a _moment_.” But this man, his own hallucination, didn’t stop and sank in fast, groaning at the tight fit. Hands clutched at Tom’s hips. He shoved his slim thighs together and straddled them, pumping in and out. Mind still glowing from his climax, Tom could only lie there and take it, rocking beneath the man. His arm dangled listlessly over the side of the bed, vision slanted through the window blinds, whispering nonsense. But when the man bent over him and nuzzled at his cheek, Tom let him, angling his head back because he wanted kisses.

And with a purr the man complied, dipping his horned head and mashing their mouths together. Tom moaned, parting his lips, eager for tongue. Their skin slapped lewdly, the sound raising the heat in his blood, his bottom bouncing under the man’s thrusts. A hand curled into his hair and tugged, arching his neck, his small cries floating up to the ceiling.

The pulses were stronger, if possible, squirting deeper, swelling and spilling from him. Gripping his hair, one big hand splayed on his lower back, the man grunted, breathing harshly. Tom felt the breaths at his ear, chills racing down his spine, and he curled his arm around the elbow trembling at his side.

“Will you be real…when I wake? W-will…you—.”

Lips at his jaw, mouthing and humming, ash and sandalwood flooded his senses. Lashes so heavy, the moon winking in and out, Tom went limp with fatigue, wincing only slightly as the man pulled out, warm kisses on his spine and the dimples at his tailbone.

The weight was gone. Aching and half-conscious, Tom stretched his fingers, trying to reach the similarly long ones trailing a path down his forearm, lingering at his wrist. Wilted, arm hanging, he felt the last affectionate squeeze of a hand, palm to palm, and then the thump of something heavy on the floor, the flutter of a mattress curtain.

Tom gave in to the flickering dark.

**

Sore and limping again, Tom soaked in the tub the next morning, rubbing his palms together, thinking. Before getting dressed for work, before breakfast or a cup of coffee, Tom took the bottle of wine he’d started the night before and dumped it down the sink. Collecting the other empty bottles from the kitchen, he took them outside to the recycle bin and left them on the curb. Tying the bathrobe sash around his waist with a determined huff, he blinked up at the sky before heading back inside.

**

The rest of the week passed without further incident. The house quiet, no more thumps at night or while he lay in his bath, Tom began to suspect that his flirty dance with delusion had all been because of the booze. It was true that he couldn’t find his electric razor on Wednesday, but discovered it under the sink in the bathroom, a perfectly normal place for him to have stashed it without remembering. He threw himself into his stuffy old manuscript and ate alone every evening. He waved at the staring family next door and swept his porch of leaves.

Friday after work he stopped for some soil and packets of seeds. If the weather held, it would be a perfect time to start his gardening. But casting a worried glance at the sky before bed, Tom saw that it was sprinkling. Climbing under the sheets, he flicked on the television to watch a bit of the news.

Blue light ghosting over his face, Tom began to nod off. But he left the television on, the droning voice of the news anchor like a balm on his mind riddled with punctuation and syntax and choice diction and thumps in the night.

A while later, television turned off, the bed dipped and he rolled like a free weight, collapsing softly against a firm body. Arms reached to hold him, and Tom snuggled tight, sighing, the scent of crushed creosote following him down.

**

Rubbing the back of his pelvic bone, he rummaged in the fridge for breakfast the next morning, bringing out eggs and sausages, some bread and jam. Juggling everything, he placed the food on the counter and then dug the orange juice out from the back shelf. Straightening, he elbowed the refrigerator door closed and turned with a glance into the living room.

The blood drained from his face, the carton slipping from his fingers to land messily on the floor, juice sloshing everywhere.

“Jesus!” he gasped, stumbling back and slipping. He landed on his backside, scuttling into the corner, cabinet handles jamming into his spine. Clutching at his chest, his eyes wide on the sofa, behind the back edge of which was a man crouched, only his head visible, hair blond, horns curved in a loose spiral, hands gripping the cushions. His eyes, big and blue, watched him.

Pain lancing through his backbone, Tom wheezed.

“W-who…who are you?” he called, bunching himself up in the corner of the kitchen, orange juice pooling under his legs. He barely felt it. Blinking fast, he assessed himself, racing heart, shaking hands, stone cold sober.

Those piercing eyes blinked once, and then the man sank slowly out of sight, twisted horns the last bit of him Tom saw. Panicked, he glanced over the entire living room, skin crawling with terror. But out from around the center island of the kitchen, only an impossible second later, the man crouched into view, not two feet from him.

Whimpering, Tom jerked upon seeing him, heart pounding, wondering how he’d moved from one spot to the other so quickly. Shuffling over, the man— _thing_ —crawled to Tom and hovered over him. Big and looming, built solidly, his limbs were wrapped with firm muscle, unashamedly naked, his cock hanging heavily between his legs. Caught by the man’s exquisite beauty, Tom’s eyes darted down and back up again in a flash, heat reddening his cheeks, realizing something quite suddenly about his dream.

“It was you,” he whispered, leaning back as the thing leaned forward. “You. And—and we…w-we…”

Teeth clicking, the man stooped low and caught Tom’s lips, big hands bracketing his face to hold him still. Tom scurried back and tried pushing at his wide shoulders, but it was futile. The man was immovable. There it was again, that scent, engulfing him, and Tom felt himself soften, comforted by the aroma, fingers curling around the man’s shoulders rather than struggling against him.

“Wait!” he cried, tearing himself away, breathing heavy. “Wait! This is too much. I—I fixed it. I dumped it out. I shouldn’t be—.” He gulped, a whine caught in his throat. “You weren’t real. I—you weren’t…”He fell silent.

The being cocked his head and stared at him and Tom got his first good look at him. Eyes piercingly blue, he seemed to blink only rarely, lashes thick and curled like a doe’s. Along his pale skin, the being bore scars, faint and varied in size, some thin, some thick, but most were symmetrical on his skin. Some radiated down in half circles from his clavicles to the middle of his wide chest, a mirror image over his back, broken only by the rise of the curious bumps down his spine.

Smoothing his thumbs over the bulge of both biceps, Tom swallowed around his dwindling panic. Aside from the hair growing on his head, and the clumpy shapes of his eyebrows, the being was hairless. No wonder he’d sounded surprised when fondling Tom’s groin that first night, trailing his fingers through his pubic hair, feeling the weight of his sac furred with it.

“What are you?” he whispered, his arms still clenched in that hard grip, still crowded over by him. And those _horns_.

Gulping, Tom lifted his hand cautiously, blue eyes zipping to watch his movement. But the man tightened his grip in small warning.

“I just…I’m just going to—to touch them.”

They felt rough under his fingers, designed with grooves that swirled as the horns swirled, like the rings at the heart of tree bark. Not exactly stone, they grew down and back over the man’s head, with a density consistent with wood, compact and firm, rooted deep and fused with the man’s skull. They were a part of him just as much as Tom’s own bones surely were.

And then the being smiled and ducked his head low, butting his horns against Tom’s shoulder. Stunned, Tom sat there in the corner of the kitchen, this horned being nuzzling him, still sore from being fucked by him in what he thought had been dreams.

"What in the world," he breathed, bottom smarting, legs sticky with juice. And when the being reached around him and hugged him tight, lips sliding behind his ear in a way that sent Tom’s heart fluttering, Tom lifted both arms to return the embrace, hesitating for only a small moment before sagging against him in the end.

**

It was weird. The being, whom he'd decided to name Chris, for lack of anything more creative – strictly avoiding choosing names like Balthasar or Screwtape or Lucifer because _fucking hell_ \- started to follow Tom wherever he went in the house. And it was only after a very serious personal self-talking-to that Tom decided he in fact _wasn't_ insane and _didn't_ need medication and _was_ conscious and _not_ asleep in his tub upstairs.

Chris was, for lack of a better word, frightening. He had this unnerving energy about him, going minutes without blinking, stalking after Tom, crouched low to the ground. He liked doing that, crouching. He seemed to prefer it to standing, which he did only once to help pull Tom from the kitchen floor. And he just kept going and going, appearing even taller than Tom by at least a few inches, his horns doing nothing to make him less intimidating. Tom shrank back, gaping.

Still rather speechless, unable to close his mouth from sheer shock, Tom skirted around him and made a beeline for the stairs thinking to change out of his clothes soiled with sticky orange juice, immediately aware that Chris was back into his crouch and following at a cautious distance. He was real and he was following Tom, and Tom’s panic began to mount. “Oh god, um.” Up the stairs, looking over his shoulder, heart jumping in his throat, he spied Chris behind him, the stubs along his back cast black, face turned up to keep Tom in his sights.

When he felt the first touch of long fingers on his ankle, he really shouldn’t have been surprised with what Chris wanted of him. Stumbling, Tom caught himself on the incline, Chris immediately at his back, draped over him, mouth searching along his neck.

“Um,” Tom gulped, held down with a wide hand on his back. He twisted his neck to see behind him. Chris was rubbing the swell of Tom’s bottom through the cotton of his pants, that rumble back in his chest. Alarm spread through Tom’s belly. “I-I don’t know if—if we should—.”

But his pants were yanked low, bunched over his thighs, Chris’s hand shifting up to grip the back of Tom’s neck.

“Oh god. Oh god, wait. I mean, just—.”

A finger slipped between his cheeks and the purring grew louder. Tom froze, face smashed to one of the carpeted steps, panting little bursts of breaths. Eyes shut tight, he braced himself, hoping he was loose enough to be able to take Chris. A long moment passed and Tom cracked an eye open, tense and trembling. Chris stared at him from behind, eyes luminescent, unblinking.

“W-wh…wh—?” Tom managed, neck craned, heart racing. And then Chris shifted closer, spongy cockhead lining in to breach. Jaw clenched, Tom cried out at the first thrust, the stretch burning, worse even than the first couple of times. Lashes soaked with his sudden tears, Tom choked on another sob, fingers clawed into the edge of the step. Chris groaned, deep and gutted, fingers flexing on Tom’s neck. At the drag back, Tom screamed, arching deep, feet trembling between Chris’s spread legs. Sinking in again, Chris held himself there, and as Tom fought to breathe, fought to rise up through the fuzz of pain, he felt the tender and soft scrape of a horn butting along his hairline.

“Chris,” he gasped, and Chris hummed, nudging him again. Slower now, as if the urgency to push into Tom were lessened, in him finally, the claiming finished, Chris moved his hips, one big hand on Tom’s pert bottom, keeping him spread open. Head to root, again and again, the tears pricking at Tom’s eyes rounding out into bursts of stars, arms loosening, fingers reaching back toward Chris.

Chris took his wrist and held him immobile as he fucked, grunts and groans spilling between those pointed teeth.

“Please,” Tom moaned, knees shifting, thighs bumping against hard muscle. “Please…just—.”

A low growl vibrated against his back as Chris leaned forward and sniffed at his curls.

“Let me—.” Gasp. “Hold you.”

Hand waving uselessly against Chris’s grip, Tom squirmed and flinched with every thrust. But now there was a smoky trail of pleasure rippling over his spine, a spark striking just inside him, filling his cock and swelling his heart.

“Please!” He jerked and yanked at his hand. Chris finally let him go and Tom pushed himself up. Rather stunned maybe, Chris slipped out, falling back a step. But Tom turned fast and reached for him, clasping his jaw in both hands and hauling him forward. Eyes wide, a low grunt in his throat, Chris let himself be kissed hard, falling back over Tom, both crashing down on the jutted stairs. They rolled, Tom’s shorts tangling at his ankles, Chris’s muscled thighs trying to spread his legs again.

“Slow,” Tom whispered. “Slow.” Eyes on him, Chris watched Tom’s mouth move, licking his lips and adjusting Tom so that he rested on his thigh. Legs spread on either side of Chris’s waist, Tom took hold of the bannister with one hand and Chris’s neck with the other. He nodded. “Okay.”

Hiking him up by his waist, Chris crowded over Tom, hovering, staring into his eyes as almost no one else in the world would have had the courage to do. Tom swallowed thickly and let his eyes flicker down, unnerved again. But Chris rumbled low in his throat and buried his face in Tom’s neck, cock seeking his wet heat. Falling into him again, Chris growled and wrapped him close, rolling Tom’s hips to fuck into him, Tom’s cries echoing down the stairwell.

Mouths bumping in quick frantic kisses, Tom kept expecting to be accidentally cut with those teeth, but Chris was careful not to let the sharp spikes prick him, saving his tongue and full lips for his neck, kissing him deep enough to bruise. Arm hooked around his broad shoulders, Tom let the bannister go and grabbed hold of the long hair falling limp to Chris’s shoulders, his fingers smoothing over a horn, liking the rough grain of it on his skin. The rise of the blunted spikes on Chris’s back caught his attention, crushed hard against Chris’s chest, and he trailed his hand down each spike, soft and malleable like cartilage, Chris shivering the further down he went.

Cheeks rasping, panted breaths harsh in his ear, Tom felt the spiral of orgasm begin to loom. Thrusting his chin forward, Tom offered himself for more kisses, and Chris granted them, a throaty snarl just behind his lips. And that’s what undid Tom, that growl, snapping his hips forward so that Chris sank in to the root and sprang free that tangled knot deep in his core.

Tom cried out, broken and hoarse, head hanging back, Chris’s tongue lapping at his Adam’s apple. A handful of pumps later, Chris slammed so hard into him, Tom’s neck flopped back, vision dotting with stars. Hanging limp in his arms, Tom moaned as Chris purred, lips pursing like sweet bows at his skin.

“I’m—I’m.” But, with the ceiling spinning, Tom wasn’t able to finish, eyes rolling back. He came to again in his bedroom, wearing only his shirt and held high in Chris’s arms. Seeing their forms reflected back to him in the television screen, Tom startled and inhaled sharply, scrambling to hold on.

“Down. Put me down, please.” He wiggled his legs until Chris placed him on his feet. A bit wobbly, Tom staggered past him, Chris’s hand trailing off his shoulder.

In his bathroom, Tom stripped the rest of his clothes and filled the tub with warm water, spying around the corner of the doorway a sliver of pale face and curve of horn peeking in at him.

"You've seen everything, haven't you," Tom said, finishing at a whisper. "Doesn't matter."

He sank into the water, leaving the green curtain parted to keep an eye on Chris.

What was he? Some kind of devil? A spirit? A demon? A ghost? The horns were alarming, as were his sharpened teeth, his quick way of darting from one place to another. He must have been in the house the entire time, Tom completely unaware of him. But then there were those strange instances, the stereo, his misplaced things, the thumps upstairs, the pasta.

_His dreams._

Rubbing his face, Tom muttered to himself, fully convinced the alcohol had been to blame, or worse that he had been slowly descending into madness, his attempts to assuage his crippling loneliness with the bitter balm of booze. He should see about inviting some friends over to watch a match, have a cookout, something.

A thump sounded close by and Tom flicked his gaze up. Chris was suddenly there, not six inches away, crouched on the floor by the tub. Tom flinched and jumped back, water sloshing around his chest.

Chris's brows furrowed and he moved closer another inch. Unblinking. Staring. A hope in his face that Tom had never seen before in another person. Not even Mikael.

“Shit.” Tom cleared his throat and shifted his gaze away, face flushed. “You move so fast,” he finished lamely, sinking a little lower in the tub.

A heavy palm settled on his head, smoothing back his curls with extreme care. Rumbling in his chest, Chris petted Tom gently, creeping closer, legs folded under him on the floor. Tom wasn’t sure if he would ever get used to Chris being so stark naked. Or so big.

"Can’t you talk?" Tom asked quietly. Chris blinked once, slow and dramatic, and when Tom smiled so did Chris, full lips widening to reveal the two rows of sharp teeth. "Wow. Those are…impressive." _And terrifying._ Tom couldn't believe that he'd kissed that mouth, that his neck bore the pinprick marks of those teeth. That Chris had actually sucked him off earlier in the week.

"Are you real? Am I not hallucinating?"

Offering no answer, Chris ducked his head again and butted his horns against Tom's temple, the woody grain of them rasping on his skin.

“Alright now,” Tom said, laughing a little nervously. “It’s just that, I can’t wrap my mind around the fact that you’ve been, well. That you’ve been with me this entire time.”

Rubbing his cheek on Tom’s forearm, Chris stared at him.

“But, I don’t understand. You’ve been in this house? All these months? By yourself?”

Another long blink.

“Or maybe you’ve been here longer. Years even.” He remembered the silt gathered at the windows, the dried splashes of liquid on the walls, and he wondered what Chris had gone through, what others had done in fear of him. If someone else had seen him – and it was entirely possible – they would have thought he was something evil, a monster, his size and the horns and teeth doing nothing to help reveal a nature that Tom was beginning to see might be purely gentle, if not mischievous and insatiable in its appetites. It was quite obvious to Tom, after the multiple times Chris had visited him in bed, that he was the object of this being’s very intense affection. Had he tried to show the same affection to others, and been rejected?

And maybe, from how invasive he was of Tom’s personal space, Chris was a bit starved for touch, for attention. How lonely to have spent years dodging holy water or salt or whatever the hell else people might have aimed at him. To spend years in a place no one wanted him...was Tom the first one to have responded with anything but anger, or hatred? Yes, he had been fearful of Chris before, but he had also thought he was a fantasy, something he’d made up. His surrender to the hallucination, never knowing that his reaction was encouraging to Chris, was a way for him to see Tom as someone he could approach, again and again. And judging by Chris’s cautious behavior behind the couch and following him up the stairs, he might have been testing Tom, gauging him and his attitude toward Chris. If he would rebuke him, lash out at him, scream at him and curse his existence. Tom, if anything, had heartened his advancements.

“Have you approached others before?” Tom asked, lifted a wet hand and tucking a strand of hair behind Chris’s ear. “Have you been hurt by them?”

Saying nothing, Chris blinked again, long and hard, and dipped his head to nudge a horn on Tom’s arm. And maybe, Tom thought, smiling at Chris and leaning closer, that was answer enough.

**

Skittish might be a permanent part of Chris’s nature, no matter Tom’s growing warmth toward him. As Tom stood and grabbed a towel, Chris shuffled back and hopped onto the sink counter, eyes on him, wide and hungry.

“No,” Tom said, holding up a finger. “You’ve taken me more than once already and without lube. That needs to stop.” He frowned and wrapped the towel around his waist. “I should buy lube.” It was surprising that he didn’t have any. Life without Mikael was a life with limited physical contact, and he had often had to finger and pleasure himself to find any kind of relief. The move had distracted him so much he’d forgotten to resupply.

Chris hopped off the counter and followed him into the bedroom, standing vertical and right on Tom’s tail. Tom glanced behind him and tried to hide his look of alarm. “I might prefer you crouching.” Chris grinned and made to grab at him. Tom hopped back, hands up. “Uh, wait a minute. Maybe I should grab that lube now. Yes. I should do that. I can’t keep doing… _this_ …without it.” He dressed in a hurry and limped down the stairs again, a horned demon right behind him. At the base of the stairs, Chris skidded to a stop, eyes squinted at the sunlight pouring in from the two bay windows. He snatched at Tom’s trousers and hauled him back into the dark interior hallway.

Stumbling, Tom latched onto his shoulder for balance. “What? What is it?”

Chris peered around his legs at the front door, and then at the sunny windows. Tom stared, confused.

“Won’t you talk to me? What’s wrong?”

But Chris shook his head and shuffled further back into the shadows.

Tom glanced between him and the windows. “You don’t like the windows? Is that it?”

Chris tightened his grip in Tom’s pants. And then, crouching closer to Tom, he reached an arm out and let his hand fall into the beam of sunlight. He didn’t flinch, didn’t show any sign of pain. But there was anxiety in his features, and Tom could see why. His hand saturated in sunlight was suddenly transparent. Tom could see the outline of every finger, the thick wrist, the rise of knuckle, but where skin and muscle should have made up the meaty part of his palm and fingers, Tom could only see the wall across from them.

“Holy shit,” he breathed, squatting next to him, trying not to wince as his muscles pulled tight. He touched Chris’s hand, barely able to feel him where the sun touched. “It weakens you?”

Chris blinked at him and inched closer. Tom grabbed his wrist and brought him back into the shade of the hallway, his hand feeling solid and heavy in his own again.

“I’ll be right back. Okay? You wait for me here. I’ll be right back.”

Chris reached between Tom’s legs and cupped his cock, a noise of want caught behind his sharp teeth.

Tom gasped and angled himself away. “Not yet. Not yet.” He softened at Chris’s cautious gaze flicking between Tom’s eyes, fingers curling in Tom’s shirt. “This isn’t going to be like Rosemary’s Baby, is it?” He laughed, and Chris followed the movement of his throat in obvious thirst.

“I’ll come back. I promise. It’s just down the street.” He cupped Chris’s cheek, pushing back his long hair, rasping a finger over his horn. A small noise in his throat, Chris leaned forward and kissed him, the same hand that had been nearly invisible now clutching Tom’s neck.

“Okay,” he gasped when they broke apart. “Okay, I know. I know, darling. Just, give me ten minutes.” He stood and Chris hung back, looking especially vulnerable in his nudity, crouched by the wall in the hallway. Tom grabbed his keys and opened a palm at him from the door – _wait here, I’ll be right back._

And Chris, peering at him from around the corner, blinked once and then disappeared from sight.

**

Why did they never put these things in the same places? Tom hurried up aisle after aisle, finally locating the personal hygiene products behind the vitamins and diabetes tests. He skimmed the options and disregarded anything flavored or too outlandish. He didn’t think Chris had had any exposure to these types of things, and Tom didn’t want to overwhelm him. Paying for the two bottles, he jumped back in his car and raced home. He was gone all of twelve minutes, but the house was resoundingly quiet when he pushed through the front door.

“Chris?” He circled downstairs and then ran up to the second floor, catching the first ruffle of mattress curtain as Chris dragged himself out from under the bed. Tom smiled, surprised at the panicked beat of his heart. “There you are. Hey.”

Chris smiled, the point of teeth sending a thrill down Tom’s spine. Pulling himself onto his knees, Chris rose in one steady jump, standing before Tom in all his height. Tom blinked up at him and then gasped when Chris grabbed his wrist and hauled him to the bed. Flopped onto his back, Tom bounced and was immediately covered in big, bulky naked demon, horns dangerously close to his face.

"Here," he said, breathless, and upended the bag from the store. The two bottles of lube came tumbling out, and Chris peered down at them, brow bent in question. Tom tore at the wrapping and tossed it to the floor, and then sat up to yank his shirt off. Grinning, Chris hurried to help, unbuckling Tom’s belt and undoing his zipper. Naked in a flash, they fell back onto the mattress. Pressing a hand on Chris’s chest to keep him at bay, Tom opened the bottle and squirted some onto his belly, dipping Chris’s fingers in the puddle and guiding them between his legs. Something lit in Chris’s eyes and he knelt at attention, pressing two fingers into Tom at once.

Tom winced but relaxed his legs after a sharp breath, the white skin of his inner thighs tightening with chills. Chris’s fingers were thick, his palms wide, and he worked Tom open with a rising flush on his cheeks. Brusque and a bit impatient, he stared down at Tom, tongue peeking out between his pointed teeth, unblinking, intense. Swallowing thickly, Tom tried his best to return his gaze, but had to drop his eyes every few moments, his own cheeks reddening.

“I wish you would say something,” he said, looking up at him under his lashes. “What do you sound like in here?” He trailed his fingers down Chris’s torso. But Chris twisted away, a stifled giggle caught in his teeth. Tom rose up on his elbows, ecstatic. “Are you ticklish?”

He laughed and reached for more of Chris, dancing his fingers across his belly. Chris burst with laughter, a lovely and deep sound, very much like the rumble Tom had heard so much of in previous nights of supposed half-lucidity. They tumbled for a moment and then Chris quickly took hold of both of Tom’s wrists, pinning him to the bed. Panting, Tom stared up at him, unable to believe that he was real, that he was heavy and made of sinew and bone and hot flesh. At least Tom thought he was. The effect of sunlight on his skin was astonishing to Tom, and also worrying. Would he disappear altogether if out in the sun for too long? How old was Chris? How did he come into being? And why _this_ house and not somewhere deeper in the forest that bordered the field outside? Was it the land, then? And the house had been built on what was Chris’s all along?

Keeping his eyes on Tom, Chris released his wrists and reached for the lube bottle. He squirted some onto his hand and started palming his length, a knowing glint in his eyes. Tom suddenly knew why, in myths and lore, demons were regaled as such tempting creatures.

“If that is what you—.” He gasped as Chris pressed in, the wide blunted head of his cock breaching. “—are.”

Unlike their previous times together – save for their time on the stairs – Tom was fully awake and aware of Chris inside him. Gone was the murky fog in his mind, the dim lighted corners of his room, darkness stretching and winking in and out of his vision; no more indistinct murmurings and grapplings at half-dreams. Tom’s mind was stunningly clear looking right at Chris, hands curled around the firm muscles of his arm, eyes wide on the faint scars that mapped his body. Snapping his hips forward, Chris hummed down at him, hair falling forward over his face, his horns jutted back. Staring at him, Chris closed his eyes for two full seconds, opening them again and smiling at Tom. Something in Tom’s chest fluttered.

“Kiss,” he whispered, lifting his chin, and Chris immediately dipped low, resting his weight on Tom, arms winding around each other. The difference the lube made was fantastic, and noticeable. The passage much smoother, Tom felt the stretch more pronounced, Chris’s heat delving into his own. Gathering Tom to him, Chris pressed himself bodily over Tom, mouths an inch apart, those sharp eyes narrowed on him. Feeling pinned in more ways than one, Tom wrapped his legs around his waist and dug his nails into the muscled meat of Chris’s back. Chris growled at that, teeth clenched.

“Oh, darling,” Tom gasped, lips swollen. “This whole time…you’ve been here. Watching me, haven’t you? It wasn’t just me thinking I was crazy. You were here and I could feel you. I just didn’t know how to identify it.” He stroked Chris’s hair, wincing at the hard thrusts, his cock thick and crushed between them. “What made you come to me? What did it?”

Chris blinked slowly, his long lashes fanning over his cheeks, and Tom grinned, grabbing his face for a sloppy kiss. Rutting on the bed, mattress bouncing, frame creaking, Chris hummed and sank in deep, again and again. Tom couldn’t remember the last time he’d moved so vigorously with someone. The last few times he’d slept with Mikael all of his own passion had fled, even if Mikael had had no idea of his souring feelings. But Tom was so attuned to Chris’s every breath, every blink, every click of those teeth, every jumping muscle swelling under his fingers.

“You’re beautiful,” Tom whispered, grazing the rough sketch of Chris’s horns. Chris rubbed their cheeks together and then butted a horn along Tom’s scalp, making Tom giggle. Tom finished with a small cry, muffled by Chris's seeking mouth, and then Chris was coming, rough pulses in his core, slapping skin to get as deep as possible.

Gasping for air, they lay tangled together, bellies and chests sticky from Tom’s cum. Moaning quietly, Chris lapped at the sticky puddles, tongue dragging through his chest hair and latching onto a nipple.

Tom’s hips jumped, Chris still embedded deep. “Stop,” he smiled. “So sensitive.” Wicked blue eyes flashed up to his and then Chris crawled up again, their lips smacking together loudly.

He eventually rolled him off and Chris followed him to the bathroom, where Tom filled the tub and sank in. Water sloshed over the edges when Chris flopped in after him, sitting in Tom’s lap with his long legs dangling over the side. Cupping Tom’s face, he butted his horns and rasped their cheeks, that deep purr pouring from him.

“Gracious,” Tom said, laughing quietly. “A bit starved for it, are we?”

Chris bobbed his ankles and settled more comfortably on him, laying his head on Tom’s shoulder. He started humming, something low and soft, a lilt that reminded Tom of breezes through trees and the rustling of tall grasses. Shower curtain rising high around them, they both slipped into a quiet doze, the water turning cool around them.

"Wait…” Tom mumbled, face tucked in beside Chris’s, noses touching. “Have you been the one playing with my bath water?”

Humming, Chris tightened his arms around Tom, and sighed quietly at his neck.

**

It was an easy thing to figure that where Tom went, Chris was sure to follow. And maybe he had been doing it all along without making himself known to Tom, but now he was very visible and eager to be at Tom’s side. And Tom, a little at a loss for words, could only stare down at where Chris stared up at him rather adoringly, round eyes calm and patient on him. He shuffled down the stairs after Tom and crouched on the kitchen floor while Tom gathered food for lunch. He interrupted only once when Tom’s cell phone rang.

“Hi, mum.”

“Darling, good morning. How’s everything?”

“Um,” Tom started, eyes widening as Chris crouched in front of him. He yanked Tom’s boxer shorts down and Tom gasped in shock. “Um, yes. Well, things are going j-just fine.”

“Wonderful! Your father wanted to chat, but he was called to a town hall meeting. Something about leaking pipes under the playground.” Tom squeezed his eyes shut as Chris took his cock into his mouth, one big swallow, blinking up at him like a pleased owl. “Darling?”

His mother’s voice cut into his mind and Tom jerked just as Chris drew back to the tip, sinking down slowly again.

“Yes! Yes, mum. I’m here, sorry.”

“You sound busy, love. Is everything with the house coming along alright?”

“Oh absolutely,” Tom managed, swallowing around the lump in his throat. He gripped the edge of the counter as Chris hummed and scooted closer. “The house is great. Amazing, actually. I have mostly everything where it needs to be. Just a few things to—to, uh, to put away.” Chris blinked hard, in that gentle and meaningful way of his. And Tom, moved to near tears, cupped his head and curled his fingers around a spiraled horn. His hips jutted forward and Chris smiled, a peek of sharp teeth. Bobbing his head now, Chris placed his big hands on Tom’s thighs for balance, never taking his eyes off him.

His mother prattling on about her gardening group snapped Tom into focus and he managed a few words about his own intentions to garden and repaint the upstairs hallway. She exclaimed happily and had him promise to send photos of his progress as time went on. Hanging up after a stuttered farewell, Tom threw his phone on the counter and grabbed Chris’s head in both hands. He pumped his hips and Chris widened his jaw to take him deeper, eyes unblinking, long fingers flexing on his thighs. Tom’s climax was sudden and sharp, a burst of light in his ribcage, arms shaking. Chris sucked hard at the tip, drawing it out, gulping down his cum until Tom was slicked clean and trembling.

“Oh…god,” he whispered, and let himself be maneuvered over the counter, Chris shoving into him from behind. Jolting on the cold surface, Tom cried out and held on, the kitchen echoing with the solid thumps of flesh smacking. The width of him, the great girth, was making small stars burst over the corners of Tom’s vision, face tilted toward the kitchen window, sunlight flooding in through the lace curtains. Chris’s hand on the counter by his head was dotted with specks of sunshine, his fingers see-through, outline of the sink cabinet visible on the other side. Suddenly afraid for him, Tom placed his hand over them, relief blooming in his chest at how solid Chris felt under his touch.

Grunting, sniffing at the nape of his neck, Chris slowed his thrusts to slide in and out from tip to root with unbearable sweetness. Tears sprang in Tom’s eyes when Chris released into him, because the swelling was savage, the gushing hotness of his seed abrupt and almost too much, Tom trembling under the force of it. He thought suddenly of his neighbor Brad, and his wife and two children, living just across the way. What would they think, he wondered sluggishly as Chris pulled out and dragged Tom up against his chest, if they could see Tom inside this house getting fucked and kissed by the very entity that no doubt was the cause of everyone’s unease and fear of the place?

Responding to Chris’s sticky kisses, Tom realized he didn’t care. Brad may have offered to help Tom move his things into the house only on the pretense of seeing the inside, but his brash offer to assist him when he ‘moved out’ only made Tom that much more determined to stay on for as long as he could. It was a self-assured sort of statement, one he thought Brad probably hadn’t meant to be so smug, but wrapped tight in Chris’s arms against the kitchen counter Tom was suddenly confident he would prove his doubters wrong.

**

After eating – and another quick rinse in the shower – Tom pulled on some old trainers and a pair of gardening gloves and stepped into the back yard. The heat was strong, but soft breezes through the field just behind his house carried a flowery fragrance that pleased him. Hesitating at the door, Chris squinted into the bright sky and ended up shuffling back into the safety of the living room, peering at Tom through the window. Tom waved at him, and Chris ducked a little lower, fingers splayed along the ledge like a shy child.

Walking through the yard, Tom took in the high grass, ignored in his haste to get settled into the house. He had no way to mow the lawn but he could start portioning off the corner for his garden, wetting the ground and packing in the new soil he'd purchased. Retrieving the seed packets from inside, Tom felt a fleeting squeeze on his ankle and turned with a smile at Chris, who stared at him from around the edge of the kitchen island.

Tom worked most of the afternoon, sweating through his shirt, the sun beating down on his head. Chris kept watch over him from the kitchen window, flitting his gaze from Tom kneeling in the corner to a butterfly that flittered and bounced against the glass pane. Tom planted three rows of flowers, covering them with fresh soil and watering them evenly.

When he heard a car door next door, he sat up and wiped at his brow. Chris straightened when Tom straightened, attuned to his every move.

“I'll be right back,” Tom whispered, feeling Chris’s eyes on him as he walked around the side of the house. Brad and his son were walking up their driveway, each holding a bag of groceries. Tom opened the side gate and walked out into the front yard, Brad’s head swiveling around at the sound, spotting him. He lifted a hand in greeting and then held up a finger. Tom nodded and wiped his face with the bottom of his shirt. The curtains at the front bay window shifted in the corner of his eye, but when Tom turned to look there was no movement.

“How’s it going?” Brad said when he came back outside a minute later, holding out a hand. Tom shook it.

“Great, thanks.”

Brad glanced up at Tom’s house behind him, face somewhat guarded. “Getting some yard work in?”

“Finally, yeah. Things are mostly done on the inside. But my backyard is a mess. I have weeds and grass growing everywhere. I was wondering if you might have a lawnmower I could borrow?”

“Of course, yeah. Absolutely.” He led Tom to a shed in his own backyard, and together they carried the machine to Tom’s property. Placing it on the ground, they looked around his yard, and Brad whistled.

“Yeah. You’ve got some work ahead of you.” Tom laughed, catching sight of Chris in the kitchen window again, ducked low in the corner, spying.

He cleared his throat and pointed to the newly turned earth.

“I’m working on getting a garden started. And I think once I get all this grass trimmed, I can see it all a bit better.”

“Like a project,” Brad said, smiling. Tom shrugged and scratched at his elbow. “Are, uh, are things going okay with the house? Any problems? Anything like that?”

 _Other than the demon living with me? And all the sex we’re having?_ “Nope,” Tom said, shaking his head. “I’ve been so busy these last couple of weeks getting everything settled, I sleep like a baby at night. This is the first time I’ve actually been able to focus on the chores around here.”

Brad stared at him, head cocked as if he couldn’t quite get Tom figured. Behind him, the kitchen window stood empty.

“Good,” he eventually said. Tom jumped in with a question of his own.

“Listen, do you know about the family that lived here before? Why they moved so suddenly?” When Brad blinked fast, Tom hurried to explain. “My agent said that the house sat empty for almost a year. I was just curious is all.”

Brad glanced over at the field beyond Tom’s wall, eyes squinted. “They came over a couple of times for dinner. Had a daughter and a son, just like me and Lizzie. The daughter was maybe four or five. Said she could see a man. He would hang from the corner of the ceiling and stare at her.”

Tom gulped and stopped himself from looking at the house.

Brad shrugged and laughed after a moment. “How true any of it was, I don’t know. Obviously you’re living here just fine, with nothing going on. They mentioned their salt disappearing, water on the floors, dirt tracks. The boy, who was probably like seventeen, claimed he never saw anything. And you know, kids say all sorts of things. But they became uncomfortable enough that they moved.”

“Wow,” Tom said, rubbing the back of his sticky neck. “I’m surprised they didn’t call an exorcist or something, just in case.”

“They might have,” Brad said seriously. “Saw a priest come in one night. Stayed for a bit. And then left. They moved shortly after that.”

Tom flashed back to what he’d found while cleaning the house – the water stains and the window ledges lined with crusty silt. Poor Chris. What had they done to him?

They fell into an awkward silence and then Brad gestured down to the lawnmower. “Here, let me show you how to run this thing.” He gave him a quick tutorial, pulling the string and starting the mower with a loud roar. The blinds at the back sliding door rattled and swayed, no doubt causing a racket inside the house. It caught Brad’s attention and he shut the mower off. “What was that?”

Noting the rise in his voice, eyes wide in alarm, Tom tried his best to sound nonchalant. “Oh, it’s just my cat. He’s…uh, spookish.”

Swallowing, Brad’s eyes flashed over the windows, as if desperate to see something but not entirely ready for it. All their talk of exorcisms and spirits had the man on edge.

“I think I got this,” Tom said, hoping Chris wouldn’t come racing outside and give his neighbor a heart attack. “I’ll bring it on over when I’m through with it. I really appreciate you letting me borrow it.”

Brad nodded and headed around the side of the house, a wary eye cast up at the roof.

Tom positioned the mower at one corner and started it up. Walking straight lines from one side of the yard to the other, he sheared the grass until it was all the same short length. The entire time, he spied Chris keeping vigil at the upstairs bedroom window, his face like a small moon in the dark background.

**

“You can really let go now,” Tom wheezed.

He was sweaty and sticky and itchy with flakes of shorn grass plastered to his legs and arms. But Chris had launched himself at him as soon as he set foot in the door, and they’d been hugging for close to two minutes now.

“Come now, darling,” Tom soothed, rubbing Chris’s back. “I’m okay. The lawn mower didn’t hurt me.”

Chris snuffled closer, huffing.

“Was it something else? Huh?”

Chris drew back, lips pulling back in a quiet snarl.

“Oh,” Tom said, a smile tugging. “So it was something else. The man?”

Not moving an inch, Chris stared at him.

“Oh, stop,” Tom laughed, taking Chris’s hand and pulling him down the hall. He followed obediently, his long legs striding beside Tom’s. “He’s my neighbor and he lent me his lawn mower. I have to be nice to him.” Chris squeezed his hand, dragging a horn along the wall, sullen.

He flopped into the bath with Tom, smothering his face with kisses, and when they heard the lawn mower start up next door, he snapped his head to the window, a snarly growl starting up in his chest.

Tom splashed his face with water and Chris turned back, stunned. Tiptoeing his fingers in the air, Tom grinned at him and then danced them across Chris’s ribs.

Bucking, Chris erupted in laughter, water sloshing everywhere, their limbs tangling.

“Okay, I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” Tom sputtered, wiping water from his eyes. Breathing heavy, they stared at each other, lying chest to chest in the tub.

Curious and inclined to touch, Chris studied Tom’s face, big hands bracketing his head. Tilting his head back, Chris’s eyes flicked down to Tom’s mouth, the broad pads of his thumbs skimming over his thin lips, parted and flushed pink. And then those long thumbs pushed into his mouth and Tom gasped, pressed back against the porcelain, Chris’s weight pinning him. He traced his thumb against the straight edge of Tom’s teeth, eyes narrowed in wonder at their vast difference from his own. Tom could already imagine what Chris might be thinking, all furrowed brow and tilted head. How do you eat, human? Do you eat enough? How do you defend yourself? How do you bite?

Letting his tongue rasp over Chris’s nail, Tom sealed his lips around his thumb and sucked. Pupils blowing, breath hitching, Chris grunted and pressed closer, eyes sharp on where his finger disappeared in Tom’s mouth. Tom moaned and fluttered his eyes, Chris all but melting over him.

Very slowly, Chris hiked Tom’s leg over his elbow and guided himself in. Their skin sliding noisily on the porcelain, Chris bucked against him. Letting Chris hook his thumb over his bottom teeth, Tom reached a hand low, circling Chris’s thick cock, feeling it move in and out of him. He was so smooth, hairless and soft, and heavy. It made Tom lightheaded with need, embracing Chris harder, feeling the lifted ridges of his spine.

“Darling,” Tom whispered, nudging their foreheads together. Keeping his rhythm, Chris cupped his cheek and blinked at him, slowly. And Tom, eyes flicking over his serious and intense face, blinked back.

**

His dreams that night were murky, but not unpleasant. He dreamt of being under the surface of a lake. How he knew it was a lake and not an ocean or a river, he wasn’t sure. But he was drifting freely in the black water, the tickle of plants under his legs from the sandy bed. Above him the sky was a glittery grey, shimmering and obtuse, beautiful. Something slid along his belly and a tiny bell of alarm sounded in his mind.

There it was again, something slimy and big. What was it? What—.

Tom woke with a gasp, hands flying up to ward the scary creature away.

But it was only Chris, positively draped over Tom’s body, squirming and wriggling like a giant whale.

“Wh-what…what are you doing?”

Tom’s skin was slick with something slimy and wet. He was drenched in it, globs of the stuff dripping to the sheets.

“What is this? Chris—Jesus, stop. _Chris.”_

But Chris was moaning and rubbing his cheek over Tom’s chest, his big hands holding Tom’s biceps to the bed. Immobile, Tom whined, still so confused. Chris was hard and kneeing his legs apart, settling heavily between.

“I don’t under—I don’t understand,” Tom mumbled, still a bit lax from his dream, from the gentle current of water he’d been floating in. But then he saw them, the two bottles of lube he’d purchased, crumpled and empty and half-buried in the mussed sheets.

“Our _lube_?”

Chris grinned, sharp teeth glinting in the moonlight, and bent to kiss him, smothering the rest of Tom’s protests. Bodies slicked with excess lube, Chris wriggling on him like an excited puppy, Tom couldn’t help the way his blood started to warm and rush quicker through his veins. Grappling now, they fumbled and slid on the bed, erections rolling together. A few quick finger pumps and then Chris was folding Tom in half, knees up by his ears, pushing in.

“Yes, _fuck_ ,” Tom whimpered, head tossed back, lungs constricted from the heavy weight. Grunting now, Chris snapped forward, horns like dark coils in the gloom of night, eyes luminescent. Holding his arms, Tom took the brunt of Chris’s thrusts, panting through clenched teeth, pulse wild at his throat. “You…wild…sneaky…little…devil,” he gasped, grinning. “Do—do you know how…how expensive lube is?”

Unconcerned, Chris adjusted his grip on Tom’s slippery legs, pushing them further down. Tom moaned, almost out of air. His cock was swollen and jumping on his belly, a sliver of precome dotting his navel. Rougher now, Chris growled and stared at Tom, long hair swaying between them.

“You’re gorgeous, my darling,” Tom whispered, lifting his chin. And between his folded legs, Chris kissed him and Tom’s orgasm broke over him like a whip, cock gushing white over his chest, a tidal wave of static and spinning light flooding his mind.

Chris came in him only a minute after, frantic after devouring Tom’s every flicker of emotion. He slowed and pumped his hips languidly, shoving his seed deep. Blinking slow now, legs numb, splattered in lube and cum, Tom winced when Chris pulled out and unfolded his legs. Pins and needles erupted over his limbs and he whimpered in the dark.

Cooing now, Chris spread himself beside Tom and gathered him to his chest, both ignoring the need to bathe. Not just yet. Not while still reeling in their high.

Vaguely, Tom made a mental note to buy more lube. Lots of it. It would be hard to hide something from someone who had all the power of invisibility and who probably watched his every move, seen or unseen. But Tom would do it. He would find a place and keep up their store of it, if this was how he would be passing his nights from now on.

**

What Chris got up to while Tom was at work, Tom didn’t know. After Tom rustled around for trousers and shirts, muttering about missing ties and cufflinks, he usually had an armful of demon every morning at the front door, those iced-blue eyes downturned in near despair at his leaving. When he arrived back home, it was sometimes to a quiet house, and sometimes to an even bigger armful of demon. It was the times that were quiet that intrigued Tom the most. He would search the house from top to bottom, sometimes not finding Chris at all. It wasn’t until the demon would slink into the room on his own, crouched low and eyeing Tom like Tom had been the one missing, that he realized maybe there were secreted spots in the house that Chris knew better than him. In time, Tom discovered Chris’s favorite hiding places. Under his bed was the most common, as was the little room under the stairs, or under the bathroom sink, and in the soil of his new garden, of all places.

Kneeling in the dirt, seed packets strewn around him, Tom was always surprised to look down and find Chris staring up at him from within the dirt, dark soil crumbled around his face, those eyes squinted up at him.

“How do you do that?” Tom asked, clutching his chest, trying to imagine how that big body could fit underground with so little fuss. But Chris, of course, said nothing, eventually sinking further into the ground and disappearing. It certainly explained the random times Tom found streaks of mud in his tub, but it made him wonder about Chris’s ability to infiltrate spaces, how his body worked and if he could vaporize or shift in any kind of way. The space under his bed was small, too. How did he fit?

Even when Chris was not visible, Tom felt watched, and it made him curious about the previous family. What had that little girl felt upon seeing Chris? Because Tom was sure she had seen him. It was always claimed that young children were more susceptible, or _sensitive_ , to such insights into half worlds and everything that adults had closed their minds to. The glimmer of in-between that hovered at the corner of one’s eyes, the flash of a passing specter, enchantment that perhaps existed just beneath the veil drawn over the eyes of those entrenched in reality, in fear.

The horns, the teeth, the _stares_. Perhaps she’d been frightened of him, and her terror had triggered her parents’ instincts to protect, to ward Chris away, whatever they conceived him to be.

But looking at Chris now, currently huddled at the back window cooing at a pair of turtledoves on the ledge, Tom couldn’t believe that one’s superstitions and predilections for violence was ever excuse enough to harm rather than take the time to simply see.

**

He was starving. Finally done with the manuscript of the boring parliament member, Tom had started on a biography on a well-known actress, a Dame by the Queen’s standards and decree, and he was finding the reading much more enjoyable.

Happy with his progress, he picked out a piece of steak and a bag of vegetables and started on his dinner. Chris was parked in front of the television, head tilted to the side watching some futbol match, looking for all the world like he didn’t understand why they were chasing the ball from one end of the pitch to the other. Setting the vegetables to cook, he started seasoning his meat, heartily looking forward to it, already savoring the juices bursting in his mouth—

The salt container was suddenly knocked from his hand, clattering to the floor and breaking.

“Hey!” He turned and stared accusingly at Chris, who crouched behind him, peering around his legs at the spilled salt. “Why did you—.” He paused, eyes widening in realization. Dropping to Chris’s eye level, he touched his shoulder gently. “Oh, darling. Darling, no. It’s alright. Come here.”

Eyes narrowed on the salt, Chris let himself be held, tugging on Tom’s arm to get him away from the offending substance.

“So it does hurt you,” Tom whispered as Chris sniffed at his hair and rubbed their cheeks together. “That’s what was all over the place. It didn’t let you look at the birds, did it, darling? Sprinkled over the windows like that?” Chris huffed and grazed the edge of his horn along the lower cabinet, scuffing it, like letting off steam, like marked territory.

Tom took his face in hand, stared deeply at him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think.” Chris sighed and butted Tom’s jaw, affectionate and forgiving.

“You know it actually doesn’t hurt me, right?”

Chris glanced up, frowning.

“Look.” Tom made to grab a pinch of the salt when Chris snatched his wrist back and crowded him into the corner of the kitchen, crouched in front of him, snarling at the salt.

“I’m going to have to clean it, Christopher,” Tom said, peeking over his shoulder. “I can use the vacuum, if you don’t want me to touch it.”

Chris quieted and side-eyed him, not convinced.

Tom slowly inched out from behind him, and Chris followed closely, hackles raised, on alert. In the room under the stairs, the handheld vacuum was in a box with other cleaning supplies, and he meant to grab it and leave again, but something caught his attention deeper in the dark. The storage room had a small nook at its end just off to the side, not directly visible from the doorway. Stooping, Tom walked further in and noted with surprise the little nest of sorts that Chris had built for himself, a collection of Tom’s clothing and spare blankets, and even a pillow from Tom’s bed that Tom hadn’t realized was missing.

“Wow,” he whispered, folding his legs under him and sitting beside the hollowed out bundle of…things. Here were his missing ties and socks, even the soft, cozy green jumper that Tom had stuffed in the back of his closet for winter.

Peeking in from around the door, Chris studied him, a little nervously.

“Come here, darling,” Tom said, sifting through the stuff. Chris shuffled in cautiously, crawling on his hands and knees. Butting Tom’s arm with his head, he rubbed his cheek over the back of Tom’s shirt, sniffing at him there and rubbing again. “You’ve taken all these things, you little sneak.” Tom laughed and Chris lifted his eyes. Braver now, he climbed over Tom’s lap and into his nest, tugging at Tom’s arm to make him move. It was a cramped fit, and Tom was immediately aware of the weight of the house above them, the dark pressing in despite the open door at the front part of the room.

“You like it here?” It was a stupid question but Tom tended to prattle on when he was nervous. Scratching a horn along the wall, Chris snuggled down behind Tom and wrapped his arms around him, huffing out tenderly at his neck. Resting back against him, a crinkling noise drew Tom’s eyes low. Stuck between the makeshift bedding and the wall was a stack of photographs, immediately recognizable. Staring back at Tom was his and Mikael’s smiling faces, only Mikael’s was barely visible through the deep gouges on the photo paper. He flipped through them, all of him and his ex-boyfriend, on trips, at family parties, alone together. Tom’s face was left immaculate, Mikael’s destroyed with scratches.

“Darling,” he murmured, and Chris lifted his head. “You really are a demon, aren’t you?” Chris didn’t laugh, only stared. Tom gulped. “I know there is little chance you understand me, and I know that you’re not human and don’t process emotions or logic like I might do. But this wasn’t necessary.” He rubbed Mikael’s destroyed face, feeling only a faint echo of what they used to have, so long ago. “He’s not in my life anymore. I kept these things out of an unwillingness to let it go. Sentiment, maybe. But you can’t deny how you feel for a person, and what we once had is gone. I think I broke his heart. And I felt terrible for a long time after, but…he wasn’t who I wanted.” He looked at Chris, face so close to his own. “It’s okay to know that. Right?”

Chris’s eyes glowed, two spots of white in the semi-dark, and Tom swallowed around the instinctual urge to back away from this unearthly being.

“Here,” he said, taking the stack of pictures and folding each down the middle. Chris’s eyes widened in alarm and his snatched one out of Tom’s hand, holding it protectively against his chest.

“I won’t ruin them. _More_ ,” he added with a smile, tugging the photograph back. He took each picture and tore them in half, severing the part with Mikael’s face. Then he handed the remains with only his face back to Chris, who accepted them in his open palms, gently. Cradling them for a short moment, he clicked his teeth and tucked them under the pillow.

“So you’ve been digging through my things, huh?”

Chris looked beautifully unapologetic.

In the distance, Tom heard the steaming angry hiss of what he now knew was his ruined dinner. “My vegetables!” He jumped up and scrambled from the room, a horn and glowing eye watching from around the corner.

**

He’d been living with a demon for a few months now and every day was a new surprise. Chris was an extremely physical being who would rather while away his time touching Tom than not. Tom often went to bed with Chris still splashing in his old bathwater, waking up later on draped in heavy muscle and soft breaths at his neck.

Cautious by nature, Chris still skulked close to the ground, creeping around corners and appearing at the foot of his bed, only his glowing eyes visible, watching. There were moments Tom didn’t hear him enter the room, only caught the movement like a glitch in the corner of his eye, chills sprouting on his skin, heart galloping in his chest. Even if he was somewhat accustomed to Chris’s presence in the house, he wasn’t necessarily used to the sudden and heart-stopping ways he made himself known. Teeth clicks from behind, a heavy hand on his bare foot in bed, a breath in his ear while he dozed in the tub.

Any of these forms of communication would have sent a person running for the hills, but Tom was confident that it was Chris’s first couple of visits to his bed that lessened the blow to Tom’s overall surprise at discovering him to be real. The approach in the kitchen, peeping around corners, the slinking close to the tub had—and continued to be—a bit frightening. But other components of Chris's nature became more apparent as he grew accustomed to his new freedom in Tom’s house. Yes, he was jealous and fiercely protective – holding Tom tightly at night, growling every time Brad's car passed by the front window – but he was also so gentle with Tom, so considerate of his comfort and pleasure. He cooed at Tom the very way he cooed at the turtledoves on the ledges and vines, he butted their heads together as tenderly as he scraped his horns along the wall in a show of territory and claiming. And Tom couldn’t deny liking the feeling of adoration Chris bestowed him.

He brought Tom gifts. It wasn't unusual for Tom to wake to a wreath of wildflowers from the meadow out back, woven in a loose circle, placed on the extra pillow for Tom to see first thing. Clumps of dirt in the sink often held smooth pale stones that Tom had never seen in his yard, and he wondered if they formed deep underground. And then there was that pale blue butterfly on the kitchen counter, dead. Powder sprinkled like glitter around its still intact body, Tom had exclaimed softly at the sight of it, face falling in sadness. Chris had come skidding into the room, fingers splayed on the floor, face happily expectant. But Tom’s look of muted horror stilled his own, and he inched closer as Tom scooped up the dead butterfly and walked outside with it. Chris crouched just within the doorway as Tom placed the butterfly on the soil just beneath the roses that had started to bloom under his care. He walked back inside and closed the door behind him, watching as Chris stared out at the garden, the bright blue speck of the butterfly smudged through the glass. Cupping his cheek, Tom murmured that it was alright, but Chris didn’t move from that spot for some time, eventually disappearing into his little cubby under the stairs.

The next afternoon Tom arrived home and called for Chris, but he didn’t make himself immediately known. Eyes bleary, head pounding, Tom sighed and trudged upstairs, shedding his jacket and tie and briefcase on the bed. He toed his shoes off and unbuttoned his cuffs, yawning as he padded to the bathroom. When he opened the door, steam billowed out, clouding over his surprised face, eyes wide on the scene.

A dozen butterflies floated through the humid air, another few clinging to the pebbled mirror, wings pulsing. Tom gasped, stepping in cautiously, fatigue forgotten as a butterfly wing skimmed his cheek, tickling him.

"Darling," he called, laughing and turning in place, trying to keep sight of all of them at once. "Chris. Darling, come here."

One by one the butterflies floated out the open door and into his bedroom. Frowning, Tom watched as they gravitated toward the bottom of his bed, underneath which he could see two glowing eyes, a heavy blink.

"There you are," Tom murmured and took to a knee. He held his hand out. "Come here, my darling. It's alright." The butterflies flitted in and out from under the bed, oblivious.

After a small hesitation, two big hands slid out along the carpet, fingers long and strong-boned, the knuckles raised with callouses. Arms, shoulders, head and horns, Chris pulled himself free of the bed, dragging his legs under him to pop into his squat, eyes up at Tom. Along both horns, butterflies rested peacefully, wings beating gently.

Tom touched a hand to his own chest. "These are for me?"

Beautifully, making Tom's heart jump in his throat, Chris nodded.

Tears burst in Tom's eyes and he flicked his gaze to the window, rubbing a hand over his mouth to quell the exuberance ready to bubble forth. Shifting nervously, Chris rose and shuffled closer, his long fingers wrapping gently around Tom's shoulders, butterflies startling into flight. He tipped Tom over the bed, yanking down his trousers and palming his balls.

"Fuck," Tom moaned as his cock was enveloped by the wet heat of Chris's mouth. Head thrown back, he barely felt the tickle of a butterfly on his throat and chest, only Chris holding him down, sucking hard, humming. And after, still licking his lips like Tom was the most delicious feast, Chris followed him into the bathroom and they lay in the still hot water he had filled for the butterflies, which glided through the room, landing on their moist skin, foreheads pressed together, Chris buried deep, trembling with a groan.

**

A storm rolled in from the east the following week, setting an electric charge to the air. Chris was visibly antsy, shuffling from one window to the other, staring up at the sleet grey sky, darkening by the hour. Birds flittered after him, perching on the sills and twittering at him.

Tom stood at the kitchen sink, watching the winds screaming outside, the meadow and far tree line outside his property all slanted roughly to the side by the gusting storm. The birds were gone now, taking refuge on the ground underneath Tom’s burgeoning garden. Bunched together, feathers ruffling, they kept their beaks pointed to the ground, tiny eyes closed. At the window, Chris watched them, hands on the glass, eyes flitting every which way. A clap of thunder sounded and he jumped back from the window, bent in a low squat, sniffing at the air.

And then he turned his head, ever so slowly, at Tom.

Lightning struck just outside and Tom flinched, Chris’s eyes cast in ice blue, unearthly.

Blinking once, those eyes narrowed on him and Tom set his mug of tea down, mouth drying at the raw expression on Chris’s face. The fall of rain on the roof, beating bullets on the windows, screaming winds, flash of lightning, booming thunder, and Chris had eyes only for him.

Crawling forward a foot, Chris lifted his chin, nostrils flaring.

A space of time passed where they stared at each other, Tom frozen under the weight of that gaze. And then Chris was standing to his full height, something Tom still found to be alarming. Stalking across the living room, long-limbed and nude, Chris took hold of Tom’s wrist and dragged him from the kitchen. Stumbling after him, Tom’s mouth opening and closing wordlessly, Chris opened the door to the room under the stairs and pulled him in. The door creaked shut, snuffing out most of the light. But Chris walked a zigzag through the boxes Tom had stored there and finally flopped them down on his nest of blankets and random items of clothes.

Tom landed with a gentle thump on his backside, Chris crawling over to lay on him. He took his head in both hands, forcing Tom’s mouth up. But Tom relaxed his body and let Chris maneuver him as he wanted, this strange and intense new energy exciting him and making him pliant. He widened his legs and wrapped them around the back of Chris, who shoved his sweatpants low and palmed his cock. Yanking Tom’s shirt off, pulling off his pants, Chris had Tom naked in record time, the darkness and the weight of the house making Tom whine and fidget.

Reaching under the pillow, Chris brought out one of the bottles of lube Tom had hidden and uncapped it.

“ _You—_ ,” he started, but Chris silenced him with a quick and smarting smack on his bottom. His eyes started to adjust with every long minute, and he blinked up at Chris. He was lovely and fierce, on-edge, the storm exciting his blood, making his touches a little rougher, his grip a little stronger. Gasping, Tom was flipped onto his stomach, face down in his own stolen pillow.

Chris stretched him fast, slicked fingers pressing in, pumping hard. Wincing, Tom gritted his teeth and reached a hand back to hold Chris’s thigh.

“Slow, darling. A little…slower.” He choked on a cry when Chris tried for a fourth finger. But Chris slowed at his plea, stilling his hand and bending over Tom’s back to press the gentlest kiss on his cheek. His teeth clicked and Tom moaned, turning his head for another kiss, this time on the mouth.

“My darling,” he whispered, and Chris nuzzled his temple, adjusting his hips to fit just right.

Tom sobbed brokenly at the breach, tears flooding his eyes. Breaths harsh at his ear, Chris slid in slowly, circling his wide hand around Tom’s throat.

“Easy, easy,” Tom mumbled, eyes open in the dark, seeing nothing. Among his own faint scent in the blankets, he smelled the deeper smoky curl of creosote and sandalwood, where his demon lay. Burying his face in the musk of it, Tom inhaled and rocked back against Chris, who started a quick rhythm, the clap of thunder echoing loudly throughout the house. Taking hold of his hips, Chris drew Tom up on his knees and started ramming into him, fast, hard, breathing heavy through his nose. Head bouncing, Tom held himself up on both hands, the sound of their skin slapping mixing with the storm outside. His own swollen cock flopped between his legs, and with every brush of his prostate Tom threatened to come unhinged. But Chris was distracted by whatever had taken hold of his blood, and he pushed harder and harder, bruising Tom’s hips, vibrating through his bones.

Tom came on a scream, arms buckling, spilling copiously on the nest of blankets. Flooded with mind-numbing endorphins, prickling his skin like points of light, he moaned into the pillow. Shuddering he went limp, but Chris continued strong, thrusting through Tom’s blissed mental static.

He squirmed and rubbed his face in the pillow, body thrumming with lingering pleasure, a hint of recollection returning to his mind. They were in Chris’s cubby under the stairs, it was storming, and Tom was getting fucked good and hard.

“Chris.” He winced, trying to rise to his elbows. “Love…”

He collapsed to the side and Chris moved with him, shifting Tom onto his back and spreading his legs again. Enveloped again, penetrated deep, Tom struggled to stay conscious, on the verge of giving in to the exhaustion that always accompanied the powerful orgasms Chris gave him.

“I…can’t,” he said softly, wrapping his arms around him nevertheless, and Chris took his head, peering down at him gently. He made a small noise in his throat and then he kissed Tom, still pumping. Tom held him, pressed flat to the blankets, heart startling with every boom of thunder.

When Chris came, Tom was both relieved and regretful. There was a different kind of urgency in Chris tonight, a mania that seemed a product of the severe weather, and it both excited and worried Tom. How long would he fuck him? Would he stay mounted on him the rest of the night? Tom had never had this kind of marathon fuck before. How much time had already passed?

But he felt it when Chris burst inside him, a drenching, a coating thick. Hand tight on his throat, cheeks squeezed together, Chris pushed his seed deep and then sagged against Tom, trembling.

They held each other, stroking each other’s hair and the tender lines of their spines. Chris slipped out and Tom felt okay enough to close his eyes and give in to the wave of fatigue. And maybe he did, because when he roused again, Chris was inside him once more, both lying on their sides, cradling Tom’s lax body.

“Oh,” Tom managed, bumping his nose along Chris’s jaw, kissing it faintly before closing his eyes and waking again later belly down and rocking under Chris’s hurried thrusts. How many times and how many ways Chris took him, Tom wasn’t sure, but his cum-splattered body revealed that he had released more than once himself to match the trickle of seed spilling between his legs.

Chris was gone from his side this last time waking. Weak and exhausted, Tom lay curled in the nest, trying to gain his bearings. It was dark still, the blankets crumpled around him, one of his own ties sticking to his belly. He peeled it off and slowly rose to his knees, body sore and wobbly. It was night by the time he emerged from under the stairs, shuffling on numb legs a few hours after being hauled in at his demon’s command. All the lights were off in the house, and the storm was still raging. The backdoor was wide open, sheets of rain gusting in, winds howling. Shuffling forward on rubbery legs, Tom shaded his eyes against the pricks of rainwater, and peered into the gloom.

Squatting outside in the center of the yard was Chris, face tilted up at the sky, hair wet and flying, horns dripping water. He was soaked and completely unbothered. Shivering and limping, Tom stepped out, shoulders hunched, arms crossed over his chest in a measly attempt to protect his nude body. Sensing him, Chris lifted an arm, eyes still closed. Tom hurried to him and dropped to his knees, inching under his arm and hugging Chris around the waist. Unlike during the day, when Chris kept to the shadows as often as he could, wary of what sunlight did to his body, nighttime was when he was strongest. When his body was the most solid and heavy, when he could come and go unencumbered, stealing into Tom’s room for affectionate tussles, or exploring the house and his things without Tom’s curious gaze. He was the freest at night, and Tom liked seeing him this way.

They sat there on the slick grass, cold rain lashing down on them, and as Tom stared up at Chris, lashes dripping, squinting in the gale, lightning flashed nearby and illuminated Chris’s smiling face, humming up at the black sky.

**

The next morning, Tom woke up feeling like his head was in a vice. Somehow he’d ended up in his own bed, remembering loosely Chris leading him up the stairs, draping him with a blanket. But how he _hurt._ A terrible ache had taken residence in his chest and belly sometime in the night, a hacking cough moist in his throat. Joints creaking, blood rushing with what felt like crushed glass, Tom blinked away the painful tears that gathered under his lashes.

“Oh god…” he moaned, voice shot, rolling to an elbow and feeling the world spin beneath him. His room was empty, as was the bathroom. Moving slowly, he got to his feet and searched for his phone. He was coherent enough at the moment to call his boss and let him know he wouldn’t be in that day.

“You sound terrible,” Everett said over the phone. Tom sneezed. “Listen, it’s Friday. Take the weekend and let me know how you’re feeling on Monday.”

Eternally grateful, Tom thanked him and stumbled downstairs to make tea. Chris was sitting on the counter with his feet in the sink, looking out at the bright day. The blinds were slanted just enough to avoid sunlight falling on him.

Tom sneezed again and Chris startled, turning to stare at him.

“I’m alright,” Tom wheezed, waving a hand vaguely. Chris hopped down and hovered as Tom started on his tea. But he didn’t sound alright, and he knew Chris could tell. His lungs and head were congested, thick and cumbersome with every step. Breaths rattling, head swollen and feverish, Tom couldn’t count the aches and pains in his body, unsure if they were from his fever or from the brutal fucking the night before under the stairs.

The floor by the back door was dry, not a speck of rainwater left, and Tom was relieved because there was no way he would have been able to set anything to rights in his current state. He stirred in some honey, eyelids heavy, swaying on his feet.

Brow bent, Chris trailed him and touched his face, whining in worry. It was clear he hadn’t known Tom was sick.

“I…I’m okay. Just need to sleep.” He was so congested, most of what he said sounded like mushed gravy. Mushed gravy? He couldn’t think.

Gulping down his tea, he wiped his mouth and walked blindly back upstairs, Chris right behind him. Big hands helped him under the covers, tucking them up against his chin. Tom mumbled and whined, head pounding, mouth dry, fever raging. Chris peered down at him, cupping his face, sniffing at his temple.

Tom wished he could assure him, but he was too tired to make the effort. He fell asleep with a moan, Chris curled over him like a cat. He drifted in painful slumber, winds rushing against the house, making it creak, making him feel as if he was on a ship at sea, rocking from side to side, nauseous and unmoored.

“Water,” he croaked sometime later, and Chris bent closer, head cocked. Tom rubbed his throat. “Water. Please.” Hopping off the bed, Chris hurried into the bathroom. Distantly, Tom heard the distinct sound of something dunking into liquid and then Chris was back, holding a cup to his lips. It tasted of old soap and Tom sputtered, coughing wetly onto the sheets. “No,” he wheezed. “Not from the tub. The sink. Please.” His legs ached. He was feverish with chills, trembling from them, otherwise he would have gotten it himself.

Chris peered at the cloudy water in the glass and then at Tom, and then at the open bathroom door.

“From the tap,” Tom whispered, eyes fluttering. He mimed turning the faucet on and off. Chris left again, and this time Tom heard the gush of the sink faucet. He managed only a few swallows before his throat closed up, grimacing as he held the glass back to Chris. “Thank you, my love,” Tom whispered, slipping away again.

He tossed and turned, moaning, head burning, limbs freezing. Chris was always there, kneeling by the bed, or wrapped tightly behind him, or sitting at the foot staring. Tom felt him shift around from time to time, lifting Tom’s arm and pressing something hard and indistinct to his body. Confused, unable to open his eyes, Tom let him putter around, comforted by the feel of his cool hands on his hot skin, the wisp of kisses Chris left on his chapped lips, the cooing.

He was worried, Tom realized, and it made his heart squeeze. “I’m sorry,” he rasped, and Chris’s head popped up. Ice blue eyes peered down at him. “I’ll be okay…in just a little bit.”

Restless, he shifted but his legs caught on something heavy and big, perched between his thighs, sitting there. But he knew it was Chris, and he wasn’t afraid.

With no appetite and all his strength gone, Tom slept most of two days. Chris brought him tap water again and again, helping Tom lift his head, holding the glass steady at his lips. He brushed Tom’s hair back and squeezed more things under the blankets. Tom was curious at the moist, cool feel against his skin, and he hoped it wasn’t some dead animal. When he rolled, things rolled with him, but he didn’t care. He was so exhausted and sleep was so soothing.

Sunday morning dawned cloudy again, but it was still brighter than he would have liked. His eyes were sensitive, tearing up at the glare. His body didn’t hurt as much and he was covered in sweat.

His fever had broken.

Leaning up on an elbow, he stared down at his bed, stunned.

Around him were all sorts of items, gifts Chris had brought him during his illness: Tom’s limp and crusty gardening gloves, a pile of drying leaves with soil still clinging, a chaffed and mottled red brick, more smooth white stones, a wreath of flowers.

Touched, Tom held each item, weighing them in his hands, wondering what had made Chris choose them. Why he hoped they would make Tom feel better. But, in all honesty, it was because Chris had picked them himself that Tom realized they already did.

He glanced up and almost fainted. The hallway was dark outside his bedroom, but in the middle of it crouched Chris, a black shadow, horns spiraled. Only his eyes were visible, glowing and trained on Tom.

“Darling,” Tom smiled, pulse racing at his throat. “Come here, love.”

Chris inched forward, hands braced on the floor. The closer he got to the doorway, the more Tom could see his open expression, eyes wide with worry, the question in them. _Are you okay?_

Tom opened his arms and Chris rose on both legs, climbing on the bed and falling over Tom. They landed on the pillows with a huff. Kissing every inch of his face, Chris made low sounds in his throat, his relief at Tom’s better health extremely obvious.

Tom laughed and let himself be coddled, but then he bent double, coughing hard into his hand. Chris drew back.

“I’m—.” Tom coughed again, his entire diaphragm seizing painfully. “I’m okay.”

Chris hurried away and came back with water, which Tom drank in three huge gulps. Looking surprised, Chris brought him more. Taking both his hands, Chris helped Tom sit up, still feeling a bit queasy and unsteady. He was starving, but didn’t want something heavy, so he sent Chris for crackers and some orange juice. Chris came back with a box of cereal and a small cup of yogurt.

Together they sat against the headboard as Tom sprinkled bits of the cereal into the yogurt and swallowed it down like a thick drink. As if fascinated by the returning color to Tom’s cheeks, Chris stroked his face, nuzzling his temple and smelling his hair.

Tom giggled quietly. “Stop. I need to bathe.”

Chris perked up at that, and Tom grinned. “Cheeky. So you know what that means, then.”

They bathed together, Chris resting back with Tom curled up in a ball on his lap. Still weak, Tom dozed and let Chris run a soaped sponge over his shoulders and back, rubbing gently at the nape of his neck. And when he coughed, shuddering in the water and making it slosh, Chris held him and petted his hair, cooing from deep in his throat.

Sluggishly, Tom cleared the bed of Chris’s gifts and lined them on the windowsill. Changing the sheets, he finally fell into bed again, out of breath and shaking, Chris curling himself at his back, ready to hold him through the night.

**

Chris seemed to be under the impression that Tom’s electric razor somehow hurt him. Even after recently moving in, Tom remembered finding his deodorant and electric razor stuck in the box of Christmas decorations under the stairs. Thinking he had misplaced them in the chaos of moving, Tom now knew that Chris had been rummaging around and taking his things since his first day in the house. Every time Tom used the razor, Chris would inch closer and closer across the floor until he was practically hanging off Tom’s arm, trying to sneakily grab it. Unconcerned, Tom lazily swatted his hand away, again and again, continuing with his shave.

“Alright,” Tom said, opening the cabinets in the bathroom. “Where is it?”

Chris wasn’t around. Or at least, he wasn’t revealing himself. But Tom knew he had heard him. Chris seemed to hear everything.

“Chris. Darling, I have to go to work. I haven’t shaved all weekend and I look a fright. Please bring it back.”

The house echoed with silence and Tom sighed. He searched everywhere. Under the bed, in Chris’s nest, behind the television, and in the bean jar, all the places Chris had hit it before. But it was nowhere. It wasn’t until he stood in the living room, hands on his hips in frustration, that he saw it. Wires hanging between the blades, his electric razor was stashed on the ceiling fan, teetering on the bowl above the lamp.

“Really?” Tom said, glancing down the hall and catching sight of Chris. Crouched and peering around the corner at him, Chris was a picture of guilt. Tom stared for a minute longer and then blinked once, deliberately and slow. From behind the wall, Chris perked up, smiling. “Rascal,” Tom muttered and went to grab a chair.

It happened again the following Friday.

“Dammit, Chris!” He fumbled under the sink, knowing very well it wouldn’t be there. Something thumped downstairs, and he stood from his crouch. Chris wasn’t in his cubby and he wasn’t behind the sofa where he sometimes liked to hide. A noise under the kitchen sink drew his eye and Tom stalked toward it. He yanked the cabinet open and there was Chris squeezed in next to his dish soap and extra sponges, legs folded up against his chest.

“You need to stop that,” he said, smacking his hands down on both thighs. “I need my razor, Chris. It doesn’t hurt me. I wouldn’t use it if it hurt me, babe. You don’t have to worry. Now where is it?”

Chris blinked up at him.

“Goddammit.” Tom made to move away but Chris latched onto his wrist, a noise of protest in his throat.

“No,” Tom said, stumbling as Chris fell out of the cabinet, still clinging to him. “No kisses. No cuddles. Not until I get my razor back.”

He yanked and tugged on his arm, but Chris held him tight, looking so distraught at Tom’s apparent anger at him. And like a flame doused in water, he went limp on the floor, facedown.

“So…stubborn,” Tom grunted, kicking his legs and trying to shake Chris’s off grip. He only ended up dragging Chris along the floor like a sack of potatoes, Chris slumped and groaning weakly in despair, arm taut as Tom struggled to loosen the hold on his wrist.

“I need my stuff, Christopher,” Tom panted, tugging to no avail. “I let you—ugh. Let you have my pillow and my clothes and my pictures. But I _need my razor_.”

The doorbell rang and they both froze. And then Chris’s head popped up, a low growl in his throat. He jumped up and tackled Tom to the floor, wrapping him in his long arms. Winded, Tom squealed and thrashed.

“Let me go. _Chris_. What?” He turned his head and coughed loudly, a dry heave that bloomed angrily from deep in his gut. He still wasn’t over his lingering cough, and his eyes watered from the strain.

Chris pressed a hand to Tom’s forehead, keeping him down as Tom rattled dryly. He stared a hole into the front door, lips pulled back in a sneer as he hissed in its direction.

“Stop! Stop it,” Tom whispered, tugging on one of Chris’s horns until Chris released him. The doorbell rang again and Tom jumped to his feet. “Coming!”

He cleared his throat and paused just before opening it, glancing back into the kitchen. But Chris had vanished.

It was his neighbor, Brad.

“Morning,” the man said, smiling, giving the house behind Tom a quick scan.

“Oh! Yes, hi. Good morning, Brad.” Tom adjusted his half-buttoned shirt.

“I wanted to catch you before work.”

Out of breath, Tom nodded. “Yeah? What’s going on?”

Another quick scan behind him. “Are you busy? Sounded like you were talking to someone just now.”

Tom glanced back, half-expecting to see Chris peering at them from around the kitchen island, sneering. “No. No one here. It was the television.”

A moment passed, the house blisteringly silent. Reddening, Tom shrugged. “Must have turned off.”

Brad frowned. “Does that happen a lot?”

Tom shifted his eyes away. “Um…”

Brad brushed off his own question. “Listen, my wife and I would like to invite you to dinner tonight. At our house. You’ve been here a while and we wanted to extend our welcome to you. We should have done it a while ago. But uh, we wanted to let you get settled.”

Wanted to make sure I was here to stay, Tom thought. He smiled. “Well, thank you! That is so kind of you. I would be happy to accept.”

“Great. I’ll tell Lizzie. Is seven tonight okay?”

Tom agreed and made a mental note to stop for some wine after work. Chris wouldn’t answer his calls as he finished getting ready – giving up on actually shaving that morning – and Tom had to leave without saying goodbye to him like he usually did.

He thought of him all day, the demon in the back of his mind as he annotated and wrote his summaries. What was he up to that moment? Was he sulking in his cubby under the stairs? Pouting in Tom’s filmy bathwater? Was he trashing Tom’s room? A horrid thought entered Tom’s mind. Would Chris leave the house permanently? Would he willingly do that? What exactly kept him there – the house or the land? Surely not the occupant. But he wasn’t sure. Considering what he’d been put through at the hands of people who had hated and feared him, surely he wouldn’t leave Tom, who had been as understanding and kind as he tried to be? Sometimes, pain of the heart was worse than pain of the body.

With that gloomy thought in mind, he stopped for wine on the way home. Putting his stuff on the kitchen counter, Tom called for Chris again, but received no response. Upstairs, his razor was placed on the bedside table, cable dangling. His heart saddened. Had he chastised Chris too vehemently? And his bed looked slept in, a deep imprint over the blankets, the pillow bowed in from the weight of someone’s head. Do demons cry?

“Oh, my darling.” He sat on the edge of the bed, careful not to disturb the remains of Chris’s quiet presence. “I’m sorry, Chris. I didn’t mean to be so upset with you this morning. It just drives me nuts that you hide my things because you think they hurt me, or whatever. But they don’t,” he insisted, looking around his empty room. He sighed. “They don’t.”

He showered quickly, hoping Chris would follow him in like he usually did, and then dressed in casual slacks and a button down. He rolled his sleeves up and took a few of the dried leaves Chris had given him while he was sick, stuffing them in his pocket for safekeeping, for comfort.

Taking the bottle of wine, he looked over the kitchen and living room and nodded quietly before slipping out the door.

**

Dinner with his neighbors was lovely. Lizzie, Brad’s wife, was a quirky redhead with big doe eyes and a toothy smile. A self-proclaimed bookworm, she prattled on with Tom about fiction versus nonfiction, asking him about his work and if he got to keep any free books, or if he got to meet any of the local authors.

He laughed. “We get the occasional free copy, yes. And sometimes a writer has to come in to meet with the marketing department. But it doesn’t happen every time. And now that I’m in nonfiction, sometimes that’s for the best.” He described the first biography he edited about the stuffy parliament member, and she nodded in sympathy.

"We’re sorry our kids couldn’t be here. Amber’s at basketball practice and Ethan is at the arcade.”

"It’s perfectly fine,” Tom assured them, sipping his wine.

"So, Tom. I was telling Lizzie how you’re getting along on your house projects.”

"Yes!” Lizzie piped in, cutting into the caramel cheesecake. “How are you liking your new place?”

They both looked expectantly at him, and Tom tried his best for casual. “Good. It’s great, actually. Just what I needed. It’s a lovely neighborhood. Nice and quiet. I’m really enjoying it.”

They seemed a bit put out by his response, and Tom hid his small smile. “Although, there was this one night I heard a bang downstairs—.”

"Oh?” They said simultaneously, and Tom nodded.

"Turns out it came from outside. A raccoon.” He sighed with a shrug. “I hope that doesn’t turn into a recurring problem. I bought the special garbage bins just in case.”

Looking relieved and only slightly disappointed, Brad said, “Oh, yeah. We had coons coming into our yard a few times last year. You’re a bit closer to the woods than we are, so they might head straight to you now that someone is living in the house.”

How odd, Tom thought. He hadn’t actually seen a real raccoon at all. Was Chris’s presence keeping them away?

And it was in that moment that he flicked his gaze to the large window beyond where Brad and Lizzie sat and saw Chris’s white face peering in at him from the corner pane. Tom gasped into his wine glass and choked on the swallow, sputtering wetly.

"Oh, dear!” Lizzie cried, rising and rushing for a napkin. Coughing, Tom waved her off, watching as Chris’s head crept lower and lower until he disappeared from the window.

“Went down the wrong pipe,” he managed, clearing his throat. Brad handed him some water, asking if he was alright. “Fine. Fine. I’m good. Thank you.”

The walk home was only slightly terrifying, in that every bush looked like a horned demon, and even if he knew that Chris would never harm him, it was unsettling and spooky. The wine was coursing warmly in his blood, and he realized he hadn’t had a sip of the stuff since he was having his sex dreams many months ago.

"But it was you the entire time,” Tom laughed, unlocking his front door. “It was you and not the booze at all.”

Flinging open the door to the storage under the stairs, Tom crawled in toward the back, relieved to see the outline of a torso and head, horns curved.

"Don’t be angry with me, love.”

Chris’s sulky silence rolled off him in waves, but the wine fortified Tom against such rejection. He edged into the cubby, Chris adamantly refusing to budge.

“Go on, shove over,” Tom said, squeezing in between the wall and Chris, settling down against the fluffy nest. “Look. I have a few things to say to you. One, I had no idea you could leave the house. Well, the yard, I guess. How far can you go? Can you go anywhere?” Chris had his eyes down and Tom moved on. “Will you forgive me, love? I’ll forgive you.”

Twin glowing eyes flashed up at him, and a thrill sped down Tom’s spine.

"Yes, forgive you. For being a brat. For being possessive and jealous. For being sullen.”

Chris huffed and turned away.

"Come on,” Tom whined, taking his wrist and bringing it to his waist. “Let’s sleep. I’m sleepy.” Snuggling down into the blankets, Tom sighed and toed his shoes off, flinging them into the dark where they landed with a thud. Chris held still beside him, as if unsure if he wanted to lie with Tom or skulk off somewhere else, but Tom, unconcerned, moaned sleepily and smiled when he felt Chris’s heavy bulk settle down against him. A big arm wrapped over his chest, a long leg flung over his own, and Chris pressed his nose to the back of Tom’s ear and inhaled. He rubbed the tip through Tom’s hair and over his temple, along his cheek and down to his neck.

"He didn’t touch me,” Tom mumbled sleepily. “I promise.”

Sniffing an extra moment just to make sure, Chris eventually huffed and pulled Tom close, their bodies curled comfortably in his little nest, the rest of the house quiet around them.

**

In the days following their little spat, Chris was like Tom’s shadow. Not only did he usually prefer to walk directly behind Tom, in an effort to avoid direct light, but he was intent on not parting from him. Tom had to shoo him away for private moments in the bathroom, but otherwise was content to let Chris trail in his footsteps, sometimes crouching, sometimes standing upright. Chris seemed to understand that it made Tom uneasy to see him hunkering low to the ground in dark hallways or just around corners, sharp teeth clicking. Or even the times Tom woke with a startled gasp at the feel of something slithering along his foot, checking over the edge of the mattress to find Chris’s head poking out from under the bed, hand frozen in midair. Guilty, he would slowly pull himself out of sight, but Tom’s heart was already galloping in fear and wild imaginings. What made Tom afraid didn’t make Chris afraid, and so it was often a point of misunderstanding, but Chris was beginning to realize Tom’s qualms against it.

It was only when Tom brought out the vacuum cleaner that Chris scurried up to the top corner of the ceiling, hanging there with a snarl on his face. He hissed and scrambled even higher when Tom powered it on, and Tom yelled at him to hush, laughing as he whipped the cord from around the vacuum’s way, pushing it from room to room.

As soon as the vacuum’s roar died away, Chris hopped down and landed agilely on his feet, following Tom into the kitchen, snarl replaced by a mischievous glint as he tried cupping Tom’s ankle mid-step. He was a curious one, sifting through the cooking spices, sneezing after sniffing at the chili powder. It wasn’t a surprise for Tom to come downstairs in the morning and find all the knives missing and the refrigerator door open with the mayonnaise lid tossed on the floor, the jar set upside on the counter with hardened mayo splattered around it. And Chris, oblivious or ignoring Tom’s muted consternation, would be sitting quietly at the windows talking to the birds.

It was a handful of times that Tom was woken from the deepest sleep by something crashing in the kitchen, the place of most of Chris’s mischief. Knowing he was in there snooping around and probably breaking more things, he would yell “Chris!” into the dark room, the house falling immediately silent, echoing with obvious repercussions of fault. Fixing his pillows, Tom would roll over and try to fall asleep again, but the door to his bedroom creaking open would draw him back to consciousness. Glancing over his shoulder, he would spy Chris peeking at him from the other side of the bed, the question on his face obvious. _Are you still mad?_

The answer was always no, lifting the blankets and wrapping himself around Chris, who was always inevitably sticky with the residue of whatever he had been playing with.

And sighing, Tom smiled and cuddled closer, happier and safer knowing that Chris was with him.

On the windowsill, his small pile of spun flower crowns grew taller yet.

**

“Buddy, how are you?”

Tom blanched at the voice on the other end of the line. His friend Steven was a fellow uni graduate, having shared the same woes about deadlines and assignments and attended the same parties and orientations as Tom had. The last time Tom had seen him had been around when he’d broken things off with Mikael, and a vulnerable moment had found him reaching for Steven for a rushed and desperate kiss. Steven, ever patient and understanding, had slowly taken Tom’s shoulders and pulled himself away. 

"Steven, wow.” Tom said, gently slapping away Chris’s reaching hand. Perched on the counter, the demon was squishing one by one a bunch of grapes, their juice slicking down his forearms, but now his attention was focused on Tom’s phone. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

"It has. Jesus, like two years? I’ve been away. It’s been a wild ride, but I’m back in town and had a visit with your parents.”

This didn’t surprise Tom. Steven had always been a constant figure in Tom’s household while at uni. He’d been – and still was – very friendly with Tom’s mum and dad, and it made sense that they were some of the first people he would visit.

"Listen, congrats on the new house. I was thinking I could gather up some of the guys and we could have a cookout with beer and some burgers. Watch the match next Saturday? Catch up? What do you say?”

Tom was speechless for a small moment and then he heard himself agreeing – yes, of course, absolutely, sure! It had been a while since he hung out with his college mates.

Suspicious of Tom’s overly cheerful voice Chris was staring at him after he hung up.

Tom rolled his eyes and took Chris’s wrist. “Oh, hush. You’re starting to know me too well.” Popping a finger sticky with grape juice into his mouth, he sucked lightly, smiling when Chris smiled.

**

The grill was prepped. Beers and soda were in the cooler. Chips and dip in the refrigerator. Sensing the excitement in the air, Chris had already bent Tom over twice, once over the back of the sofa and again upstairs over the corner of the bed, Tom’s flesh bouncing beneath him, his soft cries echoing in the house.

“Darling, I have friends coming over today,” he said once submerged in the tub. Chris squatted on the tile beside him, running long fingers through Tom’s unruly curls. He tilted his head toward Tom, brows lifted. _Yes?_ In his fingers was one of the white stones he’d been leaving all over the house, lining them in the windowsills, tucked under Tom’s pillows, in the soggy and used coffee filters from the day before. He angled one toward the corner of Tom’s mouth, pressing in lightly. But Tom turned his head away, distracted.

“I need you to behave, alright?” He twisted his neck to look at him. “Promise me?”

Chris grunted and rasped a horn over Tom’s temple. Tracing a dripping hand over his long forearm, Tom cuddled him.

"I don’t even know if they will be able to see you. I mean, some people can, I think. If the stories about the previous family are true. Unless you can control who can see you. But,” he said, looking at him. “I don’t think you would willingly scare a child.”

With those ice blue eyes, twisted horns, sharp teeth and sheer size, anyone might be afraid of Chris. But these were his friends, and he hoped to be able to have them over again. Would it ever get to a point where he could confide in them about Chris? Tom frowned. He wasn’t sure. And maybe, he never wanted to. Maybe he wanted Chris all to himself.

“I love you, my darling,” Tom murmured, butting their foreheads together. And Chris, inching closer, whined low in his throat, tracing the white stone along Tom’s lips, something sharp like urgency in his eyes.

**

The guys thought his house was fantastic. Steven, Jonathan, Tim and Davis showed up with bear hugs and meat, clapping him on the back and exclaiming at his new place. Tom gave them a tour of it, starting in the living room and kitchen and the downstairs study. Everything was in its place, cleaned and spotless. Tom was fairly confident Chris had hidden away under his bed, having seen him skulking down the hallway and into his bedroom when the doorbell rang.

While the others started up the grill outside, Steven stayed in the kitchen with Tom.

"This is incredible, Tom, really. You’ve outdone yourself.” He tipped his beer bottle in Tom’s direction and took a sip.

Tom returned the motion. “Thanks. It’s been a nice change. A little closer to the country now. A little quieter. More space.” He laughed. “I won’t miss the shouts at 2am, or the drunken stumbling down the hall outside.”

"I’m still in a flat myself, but I hope to have my own place like this too.”

They fell silent and Tom busied himself with dumping more chips into a bowl.

"Steven,” he started, sighing and setting the bowl down. “I wanted to apologize again. For—.”

"No, Tom. You don’t have to. Really. It was a long time ago and things were hard on you with Mikael. Besides. You’re my friend. And I care for how you feel and your wellbeing. You did nothing to offend me.”

He set his beer down and reached an arm, wrapping Tom in a big hug. “Come on now, bud. Let’s make some burgers.”

They spent the afternoon outside, grilling the burgers and chatting over beers. When the match started, they moved camp into the living room, munching on chips and dip and downing more beers. Tom’s thoughts were on Chris and what he was doing, if he felt left out, if he was upset. Was he watching them that moment? What if one of the guys caught sight of him? What would happen then?

And that’s when Tom saw the tips of two horns shifting slowly behind the kitchen island, Chris crouching just out of sight, eavesdropping probably.

The guys burst into cheers and pointed at the television screen, and Tom jumped up to bring everyone another round. The kitchen was empty when he entered it a second later, and he looked around wondering where his demon had gone. On the excuse of looking for something, he started opening the cabinet doors along the bottom row and finally found Chris under the kitchen sink. Squished in there with his long legs folded flat against his chest, Chris cast big blue eyes at him with a grin. He blinked once, hard. _Hi._

Endeared and bursting with affection Tom blinked back, pursing his lips in a quick air kiss before closing the cabinet door again.

His friends left a little after ten that night. Tom spied Chris only once more, peering at him from behind the sofa between two of his friends’ heads. Trying to shoo him away with his eyes, Tom grew panicked until Chris finally disappeared from sight again. Now, fed and warm from his beers, Tom stumbled up the stairs, hardly surprised when halfway up a long arm wrapped around his waist, Chris leaning down to kiss at his hair. Stripping him of clothes, Chris guided Tom down to the bed and patted his stuffed belly. Drifting, Tom kept a hand on Chris’s wrist, murmuring for him to stay and please don’t make a mess in the kitchen and don’t go stay with me stay. Stay.

And, rolling a white stone between two of his fingers, Chris did. Holding Tom all through the night and into late morning, sunlight flooding their bodies, becoming transparent and nearly weightless, he held Tom as if he were the only thing keeping him anchored to the earth, as if through touch alone he was made whole once more.

**

Winter was beginning to take shape. In the wide and washed-out bowl of the sky, in the brittle peel of his thinning garden, in the patched and yellowing grass of his backyard, winter settled in with a heavy and drafty chill. Donned in wool jumpers and cashmere scarves, Tom drove to and from work with terrible care, fully conscious of the demon waiting for him back home who might not understand why Tom left every day, who might wonder if Tom was gone for good this time. It was why Tom lavished Chris with extra hugs and kisses upon arriving home from work. But sometimes Chris liked to play and made Tom find him, his giggles giving him away in the end, both collapsing with tickles and bites.

And after, after the hard and frantic sex, the coils lashing and the spreading of heart wings, Chris would wrap Tom close and squeeze him slowly, not letting go, maybe unbelieving that he was real, that he was there, that he wasn’t chasing him away.

Even though Chris preferred crouching his way around Tom’s house, he really got a kick out of surprising Tom with his height. Tom, who would be cooking in the kitchen or fluffing the cushions in the living room, would start with a hand to his chest whenever he looked over and saw all nearly six and a half feet of the demon. Grinning, sharp teeth on full display, Chris would bend low and plant the softest kiss on the tip of Tom’s nose, blinking hard at the other’s soft yet alarmed exhale. There were still times during the summer when Chris scared Tom, waking in the middle of the night, eyes drawn to the half open bathroom door. All dark inside, Tom could barely make out the black outline of someone hunkered just within, knuckles pressed lazily to the floor for balance.

“Come now, darling,” Tom would say, swallowing past his fading dread. And eyes glowing, luminescent rings in the effervescent moonlight, Chris would inch forward, heavy sex hanging, filling quickly with intent.

The temperature didn’t seem to affect Chris, whom Tom often caught outside late at night, sitting on the loamy part of the backyard, looking up at the moon. Made silver in that fairy light, horns and eyes cast aglow, Chris looked ethereal and divine. There was something eerie about the way he moved, something ancient. His eyes had a depth and severity Tom had never seen before, lessened only by the moments he giggled under Tom’s dancing fingers, or when he tried so hard to hide and stay quiet for their games. Talking quietly with his birds, weighing butterflies from one long finger to the next, Chris seemed made of the earth and all its beauty, all its mysteries, all its secrets. The sky and ice shards bled their blue into his eyes, the rippled bark of the gnarled trees bordering the meadow twisted their wood into his horns, the fields of wheat stalks for his hair and skin. Tom felt gangly and pale next to such shine and strength, next to such domineering height and penetrating, unblinking stare.

He felt tiny and defenseless, and so cherished and protected. It was the best of balances, a way for him to explore vulnerability and still feel safe enough to grow under Chris’s attention and continued confidence in Tom’s home.

When they lay in bed together most mornings, Chris slowly inching away from the lengthening stretch of sunlight, Tom inevitably following, he traced the markings on Chris’s broad chest, wondering how he’d gotten them, if he’d done them himself or if someone else had. The ridges bumped under Tom’s fingertips, Chris watching quietly.

Chris still splashed around in Tom’s old bathwater, soaking in it for hours. He seemed so distraught when Tom emptied out the tub and scrubbed it clean, muttering under his breath how unsanitary it was to let it sit stagnant. But as soon as Tom bathed again, Chris would stopper the drain and wallow in it while Tom was away at work.

His parents visited a couple of times, but Tom was always relieved when they left, anxious at how much longer Chris would feel comfortable staying hidden. Glad they were so busy with their community involvement, Tom felt able to dedicate his time and devotion to Chris, who was quickly becoming the center of what had steadily developed into a rather lonesome life. There just wasn’t denying the power of his attraction to Chris, this being about whom he knew nothing and absolutely everything and who was a living breathing example of something he’d only ever heard of in fiction, in myth.

What was he? How did he come into being?

Tom still didn’t know, and wondered if he ever would.

The opportunity presented itself in the most surprising way when, one afternoon, he bypassed his car in the lot and visited the bakery across the street. Holding his warm pastry and a cup of Earl Grey, Tom was about to head back to his car when a voice stopped him.

“You! Hey, you!”

Tom paused, and half turned, brows raised. A woman dressed in a giant green sweater and jeans stood under the awning of the shop next to the bakery, a small and unassuming place done up in drab green and grey paint. Tom would never have noticed it on his own.

He blinked. “Yes?”

She jerked her chin toward the inside of her shop. “I’ll give you a reading. Come on in.”

“A—what?” His eyes caught on the chipping sign hanging from the lintel over the door.

_Psychic – Palm Reading – Tarot_

“Oh,” he said, shaking his head and starting a nervous step backward. “Thank you, but no.”

“He’s waiting for you back home, isn’t he?” She smiled. “Your spirit.”

A breeze picked up and whipped her long black hair over a shoulder, exposing the caramel skin of her neck.

Tom shuffled in place. “What did you say?”

She nodded, a small excited smile lighting her face. “Come in.” She turned and disappeared into the darker interior of her store and Tom, rendered mute and suspicious, had a quick look-around before following her inside.

The place smelled musky, something herbal or medicinally floral, but it wasn’t unpleasant and Tom found himself following his nose past the front sitting area and ceiling-high bookshelves. The woman disappeared behind a curtain in the back, and he hesitated thinking that this would be a time when Chris would put an arm around Tom’s shoulder and pull him close. But that thing she’d said – about a spirit waiting for him. Could she really have known?

Taking a risk, Tom hurried past the room cluttered with side tables and half a dozen lamps, the maroon-papered walls decorated with oil paintings of waterfalls and misty mountains. Inching the curtain aside, Tom peeked into the room and saw the woman lighting candles over a circular wooden table.

“Excuse me, but look. I’m not exactly sure what this is about. This is all very untoward—.”

“Sit,” she said, indicating the chair opposite her. Swallowing past another excuse, Tom set his pastry and tea on the table and sat down slowly. They stared at each other, a moment of terse silence passing before Tom began to fidget and she opened her mouth to speak.

“He’s claimed you strongly.” Her brown eyes flicked down his form, alighting just off the main part of him, as if sensing an invisible aura.

“He?”

“Oh, he is male. There is no doubt about it. It’s in the color. I can’t sense scent, but I’m sure if I could you would reek of him.” She leaned close, her long hair curling sweetly under the soft swell of her breasts. “He’s marked you…powerfully. It’s like a giant stamp on your person. You see it sometimes on human couples. Possession and jealousy. But the colors and ripples are fainter. We, you and I and other people, are not as strong as them. And your spirit is…well.” She sat back and blew air out between her pink lips, amazed. “Strong.”

Tom cleared his throat and smoothed down his jacket.

She smiled kindly. “Are we done pretending you don’t know what I’m talking about?”

“How do you know all this?”

She lifted her hand daintily and gestured to her store, brows lifted in a gesture of mock obviousness. He reddened at her playful sarcasm.

“I thought you were all…” He shrugged. “Shams.”

She laughed. “Oh most of them are. But not me.”

"What’s your name?” 

“Amber.”

“Huh.”

“Why ‘huh’?”

“I don’t know. Just thought it’d be something like ‘Cleo’ or ‘Carnation’.”

Amber tossed her head back, throat bobbing. “Carnation! Christ.”

Tom crossed his legs and glanced longingly toward the curtain and the exit just on the other side.

“You’re radiating tension. Why are you so afraid?”

“I’m _not._ ”

She hummed. “There’s an echo of fear in you.” Shrugging, she said, “Uptight, then."

He said nothing, and she smirked. “Do you want a reading?”

“Not really.”

“You’ve suffered a past trauma.”

Tom let his head fall back. “Good god.”

"You have. Something involving blood and a bla—.”

Muttering, Tom made a move to stand.

“I almost don’t even have to do anything. You’re an open book. You walking out that bakery was like a blow horn in my head. I couldn't have avoided you for miles.”

His defenses suddenly flattened and he sagged against his chair, rubbing his face with both hands. Amber's eyes widened and she reached across the table, stopping short of touching him, a reflex action.

"Oh, honey. He _has_ put a claim on you."

Tom nodded, face splitting into a tired, proud smile. "He has."

Eyes bright, Amber sat forward in her chair, chest rising with quick little breaths. Tom hesitated, and then said, “Look, I know we’ve only just met and this is the strangest conversation I’ve ever had, but would you like to go—?"

She jumped up. "Yes!"

Ten minutes later he was on the road with this woman, this _psychic_ , bubbling with excitement in his passenger seat.

“I can’t believe…,” he started, but then stopped, rubbing his cheek. It was all so much.

“I was nine when I first looked at my mom and said, ‘you’re sad mama. Papa will come back next Tuesday.’ Lo and behold, my father comes dragging his behind and suitcase back into the house and my mother wouldn’t quit gaping at me for the next month. Extra sensory perception is just the most exhausting, you know. All this baggage people carry I can’t help but feel. It’s all about the look of a person. I mean, hell. I know when I’m being lied to, when and where someone’s died—oh speaking of, right there,” she said, pointing to the hollow creek between two big oaks leading into the woods.

Tom kept driving, but craned his neck to get a better look. “ _What_ —?”

She sat back, eyes a little unfocused. “Twin girls. Mother drowned them. Eighteen…eighties. Somewhere around there. Dates get fuzzy the farther back they are.”

Tom stared at her, open-mouthed. “Are you serious?”

Amber shrugged. “A city as old as ours, there’s gonna be death. And it’s not even edifices or mortar or lodgings, so much. Not always. Because spirits and auras do get attached to places. But it’s the _land_. Dirt and stone and wood absorb everything. Build a house, live in it, knock it down. A spirit may have haunted that house for decades, but the spirit will still be there after the house is gone. Residual or intelligent, it’s all about—.”

“Wait!” Tom shouted, lifting a hand off the steering wheel. “This is—I mean, it’s a lot. You're kind of all over the place and hard to follow. All that you’ve said. Since you were _nine_? How old are you now?”

A little miffed, she looked out the window. “That’s a rather rude thing to ask a woman.”

“I’m turning back.”     

“Okay!” She sighed. “I’m thirty-nine.”

“And this is what you do? You read people’s fortunes? Feed off their yearning to commune with loved ones and desires to get rich quick with lottery numbers?”

“Okay look, honey. I could have won the lottery like a dozen times over – and I’ll readily admit that I may have, you know, _allowed_ myself to win some smaller radio contests, but that’s beside the point! Some people can’t be read. They’re this huge jumble of _crazy_ —.”

Tom rolled his eyes.

“And it’s too difficult to pinpoint anything. Auras are easy. Happy, sad, confused, angry, _murderous_. Boy, that has a color all its own. Other details – like lottery numbers and elections and assassination threats or locating a dead body - because yes, I may have helped the police on a few cases, I'm that good - those all take extreme concentration and I’m often left with nothing afterward. It’s not exactly the fun free ride you might expect it to be.” She quieted. “That shop is all I have left of my grandmother. She’s still there, you know. At the shop. She thought you were handsome.”

Tom blanched, turning onto his street.

“I, personally, think you look like a snooty tennis player.” She shrugged, nonplussed. “She was a little sensitive too. But I think I’m more than she was. At least judging by the look of suspicious dread my mother had in her eyes for the rest of her life.” She shrugged. "She didn't get that gene, I suppose."

He pulled into his driveway and cut the engine. They both stared up the house, everything motionless. He realized suddenly that he’d left his pastry back at her shop, and hoped this woman’s ghost grandmother wasn’t sniffing at his cold tea.

“What do I need to know about him?” she asked quietly, pressed back into her seat, as if edging away from something big and strong.

He smiled. “You don’t really think I’m going to answer that question, do you?”

She side-eyed him and took a deep breath.

“He won’t hurt you,” he conceded. _At least, I don’t think he will._

“Great,” she muttered, maybe having heard. “Excellent.”

They climbed out and both gathered their jumpers closer to their bodies, warding off the cold.

“Wow,” she kept whispering, looking up at the house with squinted eyes, lips parted. “It’s so interesting that you sensed nothing upon moving in, but you see and feel and experience him the strongest.” She gasped suddenly and clutched his elbow. "Oh my god, you're lovers."

Tom stopped short and turned, face red. "Did you see something?"

"No," she said, shaking her head. "Not _per se_. But I catch _vibes_ , if you will, and he's quite taken with you, is all. The amorous vibes are strong."

He was trying not to die of mortification, seriously regretting his decision to bring this woman, this stranger, into his home with Chris, when she grinned and squeezed his arm. "How do you do it? I mean, not IT it, but just the attention. The feelings. The affection. Is it overwhelming?"

"That's private," he whispered, but then shrugged, not sure he wanted to stand by his own words. His chest cracked open with relief at finally being able to talk to someone about it. "It is a little. I never expected it. He just—."

She held up a hand. "Don't tell me. I should go in blind."

He studied her face, the small bow mouth, the puckered brow, and thought she could pass for a much younger woman if she wanted to. "Okay," he said and fetched his keys. The house was quiet when they walked in, Amber with a hand pressed to her chest, mouth circled in a little 'o'.

“Oh my,” she breathed, blinking fast and taking in the front room. “He’s everywhere. He’s permeated in to the very walls, the floors, you.”

Tom stayed quiet and watched her walk a slow circle, eyes on the ceiling.

“He’s an old one. Ancient. Watchful. He watches everything. And remembers.” She made a soft, pitying sound in the back of her throat, eyes trained on the corner of the room, where Tom imagined something awful was playing out in her second sight. Or whatever.

It wasn’t unusual that Chris hadn’t shown himself yet. Sometimes he lay in hiding for Tom to stumble upon him, but there was something too still about the house, too quiet, that made Tom wonder if Chris was with them that very moment.

“You want water? Anything?”

She shook her head vaguely. “Maybe later.”

“Can you communicate with him?” Tom removed his jacket and folded it on a chair. Thinking to make Chris more trusting, he took a seat on the floor in the empty front room. Maybe if he was at Chris’s preferred eye level, the demon wouldn’t be so startled with Amber’s presence.

Still standing, Amber nodded. “I can certainly try. But with one so old, language might be a barrier. Mainly I can try to focus on what he’s feeling and what attitude he’s—.” She turned to face Tom, and jumped back a whole foot, gasping loudly, a hand to her throat.

Just behind Tom, shoulders rippling with power as he held himself crouched low, was Chris. Appearing out of thin air, eyes unblinking, peek of horn, the demon peered at Amber from around the side of Tom’s head, a clicking purr starting deep in his chest.

Amber blinked, face white.

“His eyes,” she whispered. Her own were wide as saucers.

“They glow, I know,” Tom said, turning his head and butting Chris’s chin with his forehead. “It’s only sometimes. Usually at night.” He shrugged. Amber followed his lead and slowly sank to the floor, staring as Chris inched his way out from behind Tom. Her gaze dropped down to his crotch and she reddened up to her hairline.

“He doesn’t know nudity as we know it,” Tom laughed. “Many of his emotions and reactions are different. If not highly altered.”

“He’s fascinating,” she breathed, stock still as Chris sniffed in her direction. He put a hand around Tom’s neck and looked at her pointedly.

“Oh, I know,” she said, smiling wide. “I know he’s yours.” She glanced at Tom. “His strength is otherworldly. I’m getting something mixed coming from him. He’s not human, obviously.” Tracing his horns and sharp teeth and the line of raised bumps along his spine with her sight, Amber shook her head. “But maybe he once was. I’m not sure. Can I touch him?” She lifted her hand but Chris angled himself away, returning to Tom’s side.

“That’s probably not the best idea,” Tom said, smoothing a hand over Chris’s hair, murmuring sweetly to him. Chris turned into his hand and purred, clicking his teeth quietly.

“This is…wow,” Amber sighed, clenched hands pressed to her chest. “I think, before in different places, I may have sensed echoes of beings like him. The traces they leave. But I’ve never seen one as old, as great as him. They are rare.”

Chris glanced over at her and then butted his horn against Tom’s shoulder. Staring, he slunk back around Tom and then edged behind the sofa, out of sight. When Amber scrambled up a moment later and hurried to look, Chris was gone.

“Wow,” she whispered again, and Tom grinned.

He took her for a tour of the house, showing her the entire downstairs. She lingered in the living room, lips pressed in a tight line.

“He was cornered here,” she said softly. She pointed to where Tom had a side table with a vase of flowers. “They hated him. But not all. The little girl was his friend, I think. She would tell him to be quiet, to be still, that they would see him, and one day, it seems they did.”

“What did they do?” Tom whispered, feeling Chris’s eyes on him from somewhere in the hallway. But the demon wasn’t there.

“Brought in people. Holy water did very little to him. But he didn’t like it strictly on the principle that it was being hurled at him. It was the salt that did the most damage. He doesn’t like salt.” She glanced at the windows, their ledges cleaned of dust after all this time. “He doesn’t like it at all. It was a terrible scene. He was in a lot of pain.”

She touched the closed door to the room under the stairs, but said nothing, only smiled and followed Tom to the second floor.

“Can you sense where he is right now?” Tom asked.

“Behind us. Trailing. He wants to keep you in his sights.”

“And how is he feeling?”

“Curious about me. But not threatened, I don’t think. He’s very aware of how you and I are with each other. Is he jealous?”

Tom smiled. “Very.”

They entered the bedroom and she turned her eyes to the open bathroom door.

“He’s fearful of something in there.”

Tom frowned. “Fearful.”

“Something that makes a loud noise. And it’s sharp. He doesn’t like that it’s sharp.”

“Oh, maybe it’s my razor. He’s always hiding it.”

She hummed and walked over to the window where Tom had a pile of drying flower crowns and white stones lined on the sill. Looking over the rest of the room, she saw that the white stones were everywhere, on the coverlet and both pillows, on the books by the dresser, one peeking out from beneath the mattress curtain.

“I don’t need ESP to know that these are important.”

“He keeps digging them up from somewhere. I have no idea where.” Tom took a stone and rolled it between his fingers. It was warm from the sun.

She lingered at the foot of the bed, eyes on the floor. Could she sense that that was where Chris hid sometimes?

“Can you, um…are you able to get a name for him?”

“Well. He’s been whispering—.”

Tom perked up. “He has? He can talk?”

Amber nodded. “He hasn’t with you?”

Tom’s heart fell. “No.”

“It’s very faint. But he’s whispering. And maybe there’s a name in there, but it’s all in a language I don’t recognize. Something raspy. I’m understanding, though, that he likes what you’ve named him.”

Tom wasn’t about to give her that. “Which is?”

She smiled. “Chris.”

“Shit. So you’re really real, then?”

“Really real?” She rolled her eyes and skimmed a hand on the wall. “For someone who works with books, you’re articulate.” Tom opened his mouth but she smiled. “Of course I’m real.”

They filed back downstairs and found Chris at the kitchen window, feet propped in the sink. He was chirruping to a blue jay, hands flat on the pane, smiling as the bird hopped along the ledge. When he spotted Tom, he threw his long legs over the counter and stood. Amber, who came up to the middle of Tom’s chest, gaped as she craned her neck to look up at Chris, who wrapped Tom in a giant hug and squeezed him tight.

Tom walked Amber to the door, both quiet with their newfound knowledge. In the entry way, she asked, “Driving me back?”

“Absolutely,” Tom said, hand on Chris’s head, soothing him. He was crouched behind Tom’s legs again, a hand around his ankle. He knew Tom was ready to leave. “All of this…I mean, is it very unusual? Is he not what you expected?”

She crossed her arms thoughtfully, eyes on Chris. “It’s hard to say. He’s rare in that I’ve never seen one quite like him. Only felt traces maybe. It’s like he’s corporeal but able to displace himself and not follow the laws of physics. Spatial awareness or logic. It’s strange. I feel he’s deeply connected to _here,_ this particular place. He’s of the earth. Has a powerful affection for it. I especially feel he has a strong connection to the woods behind your house. The stones, too. He wants you to have them. As many as you can. And his horns. And the bumps along his spine. He’s not human. Not anymore. But I think he used to be. Any traditional word like demon or devil or ghost or spirit doesn’t cut it with him. He transcends all of those things. I’m getting the sense that he did this to himself for some reason.”

“To himself?” Tom whispered, looking down at Chris, whose solemn gaze gave him chills. “But why?”

Amber, brow pinched in sympathy, shrugged sadly. “All he thinks of is you. That’s all I see when I try to delve in. But he’s strong, he blocks me. What I’ve seen is all you.”

When he dropped her off at her shop, she leaned back in through the passenger window, a cold gust of air billowing her hair around. She gave him her number. “Tom, what I saw today was phenomenal. Thank you.”

He nodded, a little sheepish. How does one respond?

“I’ve always been able to tell from the look of a person. And I knew when I saw the two of you together, that you both knew each other, somehow.”

Tom frowned. “But he only just appeared earlier this year—.”

“All I’m saying is—.” She sighed and shook her head sadly. “A soul knows a soul. Think about that.”

Tom left her staring after his car. She was still there as he turned the corner, the dark tree-lined road broken only by the fuzzy beams of his headlights.

Chris pounced on him the second he walked into his house. He took Tom right there in the front room, tangled together like a pretzel on the carpet, his saliva striped from Tom’s neck to temple.

The psychic’s words echoed through his mind as Chris kissed him deeply, tongues twining, hips pumping low and hard on him.

 _A soul knows a soul_ , she’d said. And breathing in the scent of wet creosote and wood smoke, running his hands up Chris’s broad back to wrap around both shoulders, Tom suddenly decided that she was right.

**

It was the stones. It had to be. Chris was insistent that Tom eat one. He’d never actually _said_ so, for obvious reasons, but Tom was suddenly reminded of every time Chris had brought him the stones, even trying at one point to force one into his mouth.

“What will happen when I swallow this?” he asked, but Chris stayed silent beside him. Of course.

It was a Friday evening and Tom had just finished washing up after his dinner. Chris had flicked mayonnaise against the cabinets and then abandoned both spoon and jar when he heard the rumble of thunder. Turning off all the lights downstairs, they went up together, hand in hand, a glass of water gripped in Tom’s trembling fingers.

A week had passed since his encounter with Amber. A week since he realized the extent of Chris’s pain at the hands of the previous house owners, or the possibility that Chris was so ancient even Amber couldn’t pinpoint an origin date. That maybe he’d actually been human. That he might have done this to himself.

“Why?” he sobbed one night, holding Chris’s face in both hands. “Won’t you speak to me, darling? Say something? Please.” Tears poured down his cheeks and Chris made a small noise, leaning forward to kiss them away. His eyes looked so helpless. _I’m sorry_ , they said. _I’m sorry I can’t explain._

And so with little else to go on, Tom settled back against the headboard with his water and a stone, Chris sitting forward on his heels, watching him. Wanting to gauge his reaction, Tom brought the stone to his lips and jumped in surprise when Chris whined and shuffled closer, a wild desperation in his glowing eyes.

“Okay, love,” Tom whispered, placing the stone on his tongue. It started to fizzle almost immediately and Tom dropped his glass out of pure shock. Water plumed over his sheets, the glass rolling away, forgotten. Clamping his jaw shut, Tom couldn’t help but swallow the gooey substance the stone had melted into. A cramp settled low in his gut and he groaned, buckling over his stomach. Chris was at his side in a second, taking his shoulders and helping Tom lie down.

Breathing heavy through his nose, teeth clenched, Tom whimpered and stared up at him, eyes wild, fingers curling around his big arms.

Chris hushed him gently, _shh shh_ , so normal a sound, as if he might utter words of comfort just after, but he didn’t. A long hand on his cheek, the other arm wrapped around the back of him, Tom felt snug in the heat and strong presence Chris provided, the bone deep familiarity of his embrace.

A wave of vertigo hit him and Tom jerked, hating the feeling of being so unmoored. Chris’s arms were the only things keeping him anchored to his bed and not floating near the ceiling, and he closed his eyes, nose dug into a hard bicep.

Breathe him in. Breathe him in. Breathe.

The storm outside finally broke open and the pitter patter of raindrops on the window lulled him away. Slowly, he let go, body going limp, lashes fluttering until Chris began to fade from before him, until he saw nothing at all.

**

It came in glimpses. Like a movie reel bouncing with static and old age. He saw himself running, like in a dream, third-party to your own mind, your own heart. Hands tied, ropes cut and whipping from both ankles, Tom ran and ran, through snow and sleet, barefoot, hoarse sobs tearing from his heaving chest. Wearing a long, filthy shirt that might have been a different color at one point but was now torn and soaked through, Tom looked every bit some kind of prisoner or criminal. Rings bruised around his neck, bleeding from lashes hidden under his shirt, Tom was blinded with pain and the frantic instinct to run, to hide. He was wounded down to his very soul, and he knew escaping meant his life. The more he let go, the smoother the image became, the more he felt all that the boy in the vision, his spitting image, did.

Behind him came the shouts of his pursuers, flickers of firelight dancing over the trees as they drew ever closer to him.

Tom stumbled and crashed to the ground, cutting his cheek on a stone. Blood dripping down his face, he scrambled on his knees and crawled to a tree. A twisted hollow near the base seemed big enough to hold him. Trying to quiet his tears, he squeezed into the opening and curled his legs into his chest, waiting. The blood from his cut burned him. His entire body quaked from cold and fear, from exhaustion, from pain.

Feeling something slither behind his neck, Tom clapped a hand over his mouth to hold in his scream, praying to last the night, to last until dawn, to last. Pounding footsteps drew close and he pressed his head back, the rough bark scratching his scalp. Voices, all male, clustered about outside, searching. He knew only a little Gaelic, able to discern that they needed to find him, that the moon of their sacrifice was approaching, that the priest would be angry if he discovered the boy missing.

The priest.

He’d caught only whispers of the giant Gaul. Stolen while he was out scouting for his ship, Tom had been dragged through the village, chained and whipped for trying to fight back. Finally cowed, breathless, he was tethered to a pole in the mud. And while he lay shivering and bleeding, the priest had been mentioned in soft whispers, that he would come back, that he would evaluate the boy for sacrifice. Frantic, Tom noticed the pole had a sharp edge, rusted with age, and once his captors’ backs were turned he managed to slice through the ropes on his feet.

He ran and they followed, alerted by the baying sheep in their pens.

And now he hid, in the womb of a tree, for his fate to be decided.

Silence just outside. Maybe they had gone, abandoned him in the hopes of catching another sacrifice in time. He waited, hardly daring to breathe, blood leaking into his eye, stinging.

Before he could flinch, a hand twisted in his shirt and he was hauled out of the dark hollow, his shoulder scraping along the jagged edge of bark.

"No!" he screamed, kicking his legs and swinging his arms. Something hard and sharp cracked him on the temple, and for one blessed moment Tom felt nothing, collapsing through the air like a felled tree and crumpling to the ground. But then a splinter of light shot through his head, like a blade of fire, and he went limp in that absolute darkness, specks of snow landing like butterfly kisses on his brow.

A startling pair of blue eyes was staring at him when he roused, lying in the muck and tied once again to the rusty stake. Tom blinked, spots of grey peppering his sight. Groaning, he moved his head and cried out weakly, pain rocking through his skull. Breathing heavy, he could only feel the stare of the man, feel the great size of him, the heat he radiated in the bone-cracking cold. And Tom could see, the observer to this vision, that this was Chris. His Chris.

So this was the priest. The giant Gaul. He would die now.

Dressed in long brown robes, the man uttered a calm statement, and the villagers rose up behind him in anger. But the priest simply turned his head and all fell silent. Tom caught snatches of his words, still dazed and trembling in pain. His feet, he noticed, were bound again.

"Find another. This boy must be clean to sacrifice. He must be unmarred."

"It has never been this way before," a villager argued. And Chris spun on him.

"Do you question your gods?"

"So we kill him fast," another shouted. "Get rid of him."

"No," said the priest, voice sharp. "Your treatment makes him unsuitable for the offering. But he will heal. And then he will be suitable. Until then, none will touch him."

There was muttering, and more than one pair of eyes flashed to Tom in contempt. Tom moaned and fell off the edge again, sinking into the dark.

Some other man's screams filled the air two nights later. Cowering in his cell, Tom wept and tried to cover his ears, but the man's anguish was great and remnants of his cries echoed in Tom's mind for hours after. The smell of charred flesh permeated the village the following morning, but everyone seemed in happy enough spirits, content that their gods were satisfied and another bountiful harvest would be had. Only the priest came to visit him, smiling as he left a bowl of stew and black bread just inside the metal bars that held Tom captive. He ate, unable to ignore the kind smile the priest gave him.

Fettered, Tom was unable to move much and he started to suffer from sores on his limbs. With a patient murmur, the priest retrieved him from his cage and Tom stumbled after him through the village to a crude stone temple at the edge of the village. Here, in the damp and bare chambers, the priest ate and slept and communed with the gods and, under his gentle care, Tom slowly regained his health.

His sores vanished, his limbs grew strong, heart beating stutter-less as he ate what the priest brought him and accompanied him - on a length of rope - to the springs to bathe. The villagers kept their word and didn't bother Tom, ignoring him entirely. He was the priest's to care for, to heal, to make appropriate for sacrifice. And even though Tom knew the eventual outcome of the priest’s attentions, the kindness in his eyes and smile and touch was what Tom clung to surrounded by his enemies. The priest was becoming Tom's anchor to sanity, held captive by people his mother used to tell him stories about, warned him to be careful of. Had his comrades set sail without him? Tom wouldn’t blame them if they had. They surely thought him dead now, or lost forever.

Tom was never allowed to walk about freely, and the priest was nearly always in Tom's company, putting ointment on his cuts, massaging his wrists and ankles before securing the rope on him again. They watched each other, silent, and as each moon set Tom felt something begin to sprout in his ribcage.

It first happened at the springs. Supposedly sacred, only the priest was allowed to use them, but he brought Tom for the privacy and the warmth. The water bubbled and steamed and Tom took the chance to wash thoroughly during each visit, crouched at the edge of the water, keeping himself clothed for modesty. But after the third visit, emboldened by the priest’s gentle treatment of him and the obvious affection burgeoning between them, Tom risked everything and stripped himself nude. Sitting on a rock beside the springs, Chris had started, eyes wide on Tom wading into the water, who caught his staring eyes over his shoulder and glanced down quickly, cheeks reddening from the steam and his own daring.

It was a quick blossoming. Chris's mouth on his was like fire and rain, and his touch was just as branding. The springs was their place to couple, Chris disrobed and rutting into him, this giant of a man, so gentle, hands spread wide beneath Tom's back so his skin wouldn't chafe. Tom touched every part of him he could, fascinated by the weight and heat and scent and texture of him, the scarred markings on his chest and back, the coarse hair at the nape of his neck, his full lips. They mated slowly and urgently and conspired to breathe together and love without fear. Here in the water they were safe and free. Here in the water they were blessed, and Tom began to know the pulse of the blood in his own veins. And afterward, Chris would take him to the meadow beyond the springs and they would roll on the grass there, a truly holy place in the dead of winter. Quiet, legs twined together, Chris would weave him crowns of delicate flowers and place them on Tom's curls, grown long and bouncy under the man's touch.

And under the canopy of bare-limbed trees, the spread of grass and blossoms under their bodies, Chris whispered something over and over, lips brushing Tom's, his long golden hair tickling Tom's face.

Tom, fully healed and floating in this newfound sensation, cupped the priest's cheek and whispered, "And I love you."

But it wasn't meant to last. Perhaps the villagers had gotten suspicious of their time away from camp. Perhaps they felt Tom was healthy and ruddy enough to be killed that very night, the waxing moon sharpening their frenzy for blood and ritual, because they found them instantly. Barely dressed after their coupling, Chris was kissing Tom's brow when the first arrow whooshed through the air and struck him in the shoulder. Chris grunted, the force of the arrow spinning him. Tom screamed and made to catch him, but Chris shoved him hard, one guttural word on his lips.

_Run._

Heart in his throat, Tom turned on his heel and sprinted, once more fleeing for his life in these woods, in this land so far from home. Sounds behind him, the pulp and crack of a bodily struggle, urged him on around the springs and into the meadow. Cutting across the center, he turned back for only a moment, anxious to see a sign of his priest, when the arrow hit him.

Pain erupted in his shoulder as he was knocked to the ground. There were only a few of them, men who seemed to have gathered on their own to come root out the mystery between this scrawny captive and their priest. Fletching made of bird feathers and beads, the arrow shook with each of Tom’s labored breaths, lying there where he and Chris had so often lain in moments of shared bliss, however brief. A pile of old flower crowns was gathered at the base of the tree behind him. He knew this. He knew because he’d put them there himself, for safekeeping. 

“Stop…please. I beg you.” His voice shook, crawling back on his elbows, heels digging into the soil, pain flaring down his arm. There was no sign of his priest.

The biggest man spit something out, too fast to understand, and descended on Tom, straddling his chest. With a cruel finger, he twanged the arrow shaft so that it vibrated and Tom screamed and kicked his legs. But hands grabbed each ankle, securing him. A swift blow to his temple made stars bubble in his vision, robbing him of the little strength he had left.

“No,” he mumbled. Crumpled, he pushed hands against the man’s chest. “No, please! Priest! Priest!”

In devastating slow motion, the man took a fistful of his hair and brought a blade out from behind his back. Behind them there was a cluster of movement, a terrible echo of pain, but Tom nor the man on top of him saw this. Face a snarled mask of rage, in one hard and quick motion, the man drew the sharpened edge of the knife deep across Tom’s throat, fire pouring from him in waves of scarlet, his life. Eyes wide, Tom didn’t feel when the man was hauled off him, only saw the passing flutter flight of a bird, and was afraid.

A scream like the roar of thunder echoed in the clearing, and Tom blinked up at the frightening sky. It wasn’t him, it couldn’t be. He would never scream again. His priest was there suddenly, three arrow shafts sticking from his torso, shattered into jagged points, blood like black oil darkening his robes. His lip was cut and a bruise was forming over his forehead, but his sight and voice were for Tom only, bent low over him, horror on his handsome face.

Throat slit, Tom writhed and choked, terrible wet sounds filling the air. He couldn’t breathe, blood bubbling in his mouth, spots of it bursting forth and landing like warm spittle on his own face. He grabbed at Chris, who grabbed at him, those big hands palming over his neck, trying desperately to stanch the flow of blood. But it poured in heavy pulses between his trembling fingers, his sobs and screams doing nothing to help Tom, who was fading and paling with every beat of his heart.

 _No,_ his priest moaned, the bodies of his own villagers scattered around them, dead at his hands, hands that couldn’t now save the one he loved the most. Panicked, he pressed a hard kiss to Tom’s lips, staring into eyes pleading and ringed with tear-soaked lashes.

 _Priest_ , he mouthed, voiceless now. But his priest’s face was starting to shudder, to splinter, to wane.

_Stay. Stay with me. Don’t leave me. Don’t._

How he loved that voice, deep like thunder, deep like the ocean he so often called his home.

The white of the sky was milking into the creep of the trees, into the soft crown of Chris’s golden hair, blinding him to everything. Nothing hurt anymore. He felt nothing, not even the hard, desperate press of Chris’s hands on the ragged gash over his throat.

He felt nothing. Only the distant rumble of thunder to guide him into the dark.

You have traces of fear on you, the psychic had said. He was beginning to understand why.

Tom watched himself die. Lying there on the flowers, Chris pleading with him, sobs broken, and he felt his heart slowly crack open in his chest.

For a long time, Chris stayed hunched over him, rocking gently on his knees, a puddle of blood soaked into the earth. But with a ragged breath, he roused and glared up at the sky, teeth glinting as he screamed and cursed, beating his own chest with a closed fist, again and again, pounding, pounding. Face twisted in disgust and sorrow, he reached behind him and broke the arrowheads protruding from his back, yanking the shafts out of his torso and tossing them carelessly aside. He tore his robes off, kneeling naked on the ground, gentle hands back on Tom’s face, caressing it. Oblivious to his own pain, whispering, he took what blood he could and began smearing it on his skin, over his cheeks and down his neck, across his chest and to his belly, big arcs and swipes that left his pale skin stained tawny red, a sordid mixture of his own life and Tom’s. He muttered and he raved, tearing flower stems from the dirt and weaving one final crown with fingers crusted and shaking.

The image shifted and began to fray at the edges, like paper burnt by flame. Tom felt a pull behind his navel and he was being hauled backwards, back to the present, where he lay on his bed still, in Chris’s arms again. It was dark and still raining. How much time had passed?

Cheeks wet with tears, Chris blinked down at him and Tom lifted his arm, stiff from disuse. He cupped his face, still unbelieving, still frozen by his shock. This was the same man. Only different. His eyes glowed and he bore horns, teeth sharpened with blunted spikes on his back. What had happened after Tom died? What caused this? What _had_ Chris done to himself?

“My priest,” Tom whispered, voice hoarse.

And Chris, cuddling into Tom’s open palm, smiled in relief.

**

They sought refuge in the bath.

Water hot, green shower curtain swung closed around them, they lay in the tub and Tom wept. He cried and shook, memories of a past life flooding his senses, so that he remembered the steam of the springs, the smooth glide of his hand on Chris’s hair, hornless, human. He remembered the ruptured scent of the flowers crushed beneath their twined bodies, the tickle of a crown on his head, the way Chris’s eyes crinkled with the wide sky braced behind him. He remembered the sharp sting of the arrow piercing his shoulder, the slice of a blade at his throat, the chitter of birdsong as Chris wept over him.

“It’s you,” he whispered, clinging to Chris, the water lapping at their skin. He kissed his neck, his jaw and cheek, his full lips. “It was you. You tried to save me. Oh god, my love. I’m so sorry. You’ve been alone this whole time. Looking for me.” More hot tears and Tom collapsed on him with fresh sobs, Chris humming to him, kissing his hair and throwing a leg over Tom’s hips, enveloping him.

“But it makes sense now, Chris!” Tom rubbed at his eyes, chest jumping. “Everything. Why we like to bathe together. The flower crowns. Why you don’t want my razor blade near me.

“I admit now that I’ve been restless, love. Malcontent. Nothing was good enough. No one was. Not even Mikael, who was good to me, who was kind. His only fault was that he wasn’t you, and my heart sensed it. This is unbelievable.” He shut his eyes and breathed deep. Against his hip, Chris began to stir and Tom opened his legs to cradle him there.

“I love you,” he sighed, rocking under his demon, his ancient, sacred priest. “I love you. Where have I been, Chris? Where was I while you’ve been here, waiting?”

Chris moaned and sniffed his cheek, mouthing at his jaw, the water spilling to the floor around them.

“It was in those woods, wasn’t it? We lived and loved each other there, and that’s where I died.”

Chris nodded, a heavy sadness turning down the corners of his eyes, rolling his hips to hear Tom gasp his name. Tom knew now why Chris loved touching his neck, why he looked so fascinated by the smooth skin. How awful to remember one thing and see something completely different in the present. Was it like a dream? Can a prolonged nightmare last over a thousand years, or however long Chris had waited to see Tom alive and well again?

Whimpering, clasping at him, Tom came on a rougher thrust, the pulse of seed and swelling head inside him making his eyes roll back as he arched and trembled. Chris licked and nibbled at his ear and Tom giggled and wrapped him as tightly as he could, determined to never let him go again.

“Not now when we’ve finally found each other again.”

**

“It’s the stone,” Tom exclaimed, pushing through the door at Amber’s shop. She was watering her plants and turned with a gasp at his entrance. He stopped short. “What? Didn’t—.”

“See you coming, ha ha ha,” she said, turning to her plant. “Amateurs.”

“But it’s true. Look at this thing. I ate one the other night and it showed me everything.”

She frowned. Her hair was done in a lovely braid down her back, her jeans whitewashed, her blouse homespun. “What are you talking about?”

In quick, excited bursts, Tom explained everything, his vision, his past life, his death and Chris’s torment.

“He _did_ do something, but I have no idea what. He was smearing himself with my blood when the vision ended. I mean. You were right, Amber. We knew each other before. We had loved each other before. And he’s waited all these hundreds of years for me to be born again.”

She sat down on a chaise lounge, a glimmering waterfall oil painting behind her. Tom swallowed and caught his breath, half wondering if her ghost grandmother was observing this entire exchange. He plopped down next to her and they stared out the window. She was quiet.

“I heard his voice, Amber,” he said. “It was beautiful.” When she didn’t respond, he turned to face her. “You got sad just now. What’s wrong?”

“What are you going to do, Tom?” she asked, meeting his gaze.

“With what?

“I didn’t know what it meant back at the house, but he wants to know. He wants to know what you’ll decide.”

“Decide?”

“Telling me about the stone just now, and what it did. I realize that that’s what he meant. I think he wants you to take more.”

“What will they do? The vision was so intense. I mean, hours had passed when I woke up again. What will more do to me?”

“I don’t know, Tom. But I think going forward with consuming more of them, you’ll not remain unchanged. Greatly the opposite, I feel.”

The drive home was less exciting than it was to Amber’s shop. She seemed to be under the impression that the stones would act as some kind of catalyst in a life-changing event. But Chris himself had been a life-changing event, a force of nature Tom could never have ignored, much less predicted. Not out of trepidation or suspicion of the unknown, but out of the insurmountable knowledge that their love had surpassed the passing of centuries, and when one heart saw the other, it recognized it and knew.

The stones.

Tom frowned. Would…would they make Tom like Chris? Immortal? With horns and glowing eyes? Would it matter as long as they were together? Grant them the time that fate had denied them so long ago? Would he be suspended in an endless loop of that morning in the meadow, when Chris was shot down with arrows and he was sliced from ear to ear? Or would he be forever balanced in an eternal sleep, never to wake, Chris relegated to holding his dreaming body, denied once more the love he’d waited so long to recover? Tom’s head swam at the possibility and he nearly missed the entry into his own driveway.

“Chris?” he called as soon as he got home. There was a clatter in the kitchen and then Chris came skidding into view, mayonnaise splattered on his chest. Tom sagged in relief and hurried to him. Chris stood and they hugged, mayonnaise forgotten. Tom took his face in both hands. "Darling, I need to ask you something. Do you understand me?"

Chris blinked once, and Tom nodded.

"Good. Okay. So the other night with the stone."

Chris nodded.

"How many do I need to take to become like you? To be with you? Forever?"

It was a spontaneous, heart-felt answer. Something he might have already been wishing for since discovering Chris behind his sofa that long ago morning. It was a sudden and clarifying solution, what he’d wanted for centuries, it seemed.

Frozen, Chris didn't answer. His grip tightened on Tom's arms, eyes jumping back and forth between his own.

Tom licked his lips, stepping forward. "How many, Chris?"

Turning on his heel, Chris went to the sofa and searched under its cushions, tossing them to the floor. He came back with a stone in his palm and presented it to Tom.

"Just one? That's all I need?"

Chris shook his head. He pointed at himself and then at Tom, lifting his hand to his throat and patting it.

"One...so we can talk?"

Before Chris brought his chin down in the first nod, Tom was shoving the stone into his mouth, where it melted and bubbled on his tongue. Stomach turning, his knees buckled and Chris caught him in his arms, carrying him to the sofa where Tom lay back and swallowed the rest of the gooey sludge. He was pulled from his living room again and taken to the same meadow where he’d died, only this time there were no angry men, no frenzied dread, and it was spring, with tall verdant trees and the flower stalks up to his chest.

Blinking around the pollen-dusted air, Tom felt down his own chest, nude and spotted with grass blades and multi-colored flower petals.

Across the glade between two giant trees, was Chris.

Tom gasped and stepped forward, drawn by the single sunlight spark of Chris’s grin. They met each other half way, stopping just a foot apart, both panting lightly.

“Hello,” Chris said, voice honey soaked and curled with the deep timbre of rain.

“Hello,” Tom whispered, voice barely there, shock and glee lilting the end into a soundless shape.

Very slowly, Chris reached between them and took Tom’s elbow and that’s all the encouragement Tom needed before he was sagging forward into Chris’s arms. They embraced, lips meeting with muted moans, the slide of tongue, home.

“I missed you,” Tom gasped when they broke apart, and lashes dripping his relief, Chris laughed and kissed him again.

“It’s been so long,” he whispered. “I waited. And would have waited another thousand years. For you, anything.”

“Darling,” Tom sobbed.

They clutched at each other and tumbled to the ground, flattening the grass and flowers, limbs winding in a pose they remembered well. Chris peppered him with kisses, face, hair, chest and belly, and finally his neck. A soft peck on the jutted point of his Adam’s apple, smooth and unmarred.

“I will never see you in pain again,” Chris vowed quietly, closing his eyes at Tom’s soft fingers in his hair. “Never, Tom.”

“Say it again. Please.”

Chris laughed. “Tom! Tom, Tom, my Tom.”

They rolled and giggled together, brushing nettles from their hair and petals out of their ears, the smack of bruised and desperate lips sounding in the glade.

“But what is your name?” Tom asked, breathless, chest tight with everything he wanted to know, everything he wanted to say.

“You’ve named me. My name is Chris.”

Tom frowned. “But—.”

“You were the only one to name me, and not call me names. I take your name because it is of you. Besides, my name no longer exists in any language now known. Even though, you at one time, knew it well.”

Tom cupped his cheek, vision swimming. “I’m so sorry, love. I’m so sorry.”

“No. Don’t be. You were taken from me. The debt they owed me was paid. After that I waited for you to come back to me.”

“But what is this place? Is this place real?” The meadow they were in was as familiar as his bed back home.

“It is real. It’s lived inside us since the day we first saw each other. Only, we are able to visit it now on an in-between plane. We are both still back in your home. It’s the same meadow outside in the woods by your house. You’ve never been there because you don’t venture farther out than your own backyard.”

Tom looked at Chris and then sat up, crossing his legs. Chris followed suit, taking his hands between their bodies.

“Why couldn’t you talk to me before? Why do you have horns and glowing eyes and sharp teeth?”

“Do I frighten you?”

“You did at first.”

“Because you didn’t recognize me.”

“Because I thought you were a demon.”

Chris shrugged. “Perhaps I am.”

“But how? You were human once. Like me.”

Chris blinked down at their clasped hands, taking a slow and steadying breath.

“I felt your heart stop beating. My hands were pressed to your neck, each beat like a clap of thunder beneath my palms. And then there was no movement, only silence, the light gone from your eyes. I didn’t know what to do that single moment. Your death was inconceivable. It just couldn’t be. But your heart remained still, and I started to realize that you were gone. I can’t tell you now the things I screamed at the sun. I cursed it. I proclaimed it dead to me. Everything I poured forth on the river of my rage stayed locked inside me, for even now the sun takes my strength. It happened to be the unfortunate object of my fury, the rising sun. It took the brunt of it, and now shuns me for my brazen words.” Chris sighed, his long thumbs rubbing circles on Tom’s knuckles. “Your blood sustained me in a way the sun never could, not from that point forward. I drenched myself in what your body had so unwillingly poured forth, rubbing it all over myself. I swore I would find you again. I pledged myself to the goddess of this wood, a goddess I had devoutly prayed to when I was still a priest, giving her my mortality and voice, enraged that yours had been stolen from you so suddenly and violently. And this deity accepted my bargain. These horns grew out of me within a fortnight, teeth filing to points, my eyes ringed with preternatural light to always have sight to search, even in the dark, for you. In essence, I chained myself to this good earth, to roam and find you again. I could have left here. Sought you out. You could have been born anywhere, and maybe you were, somewhere far, a hundred times over. But I didn’t want to wander too far from here, afraid I wouldn’t find my way back, that you would be here and find me missing. I knew you would come to me when you were ready, here to this place. Where we first met and loved each other. So I stayed.”

Tom’s tears dripped off the edge of his jaw, fingers wrapped tightly. His heart, eternally deep, would know no respite from this huge emotion taken root in his chest.

“But your oath turned you into a being that was scorned and rejected and despised, people’s fears and superstitions hurting you in all your silence.” Tom sniffed and rubbed at his eyes, helpless in the face of something that had been decided long ago.

“I never knew when you might return to me. But I was determined to wait. Because you were— _are_ —everything to me.” He took Tom’s face. “Everything that the gods I had prayed to couldn’t fulfill in me. Yes they exist, and yes they often speak to me still, but you are more than anything I have ever encountered before.”

“No,” Tom moaned, devastated at his role in all this, how culpable his tragic and unintentional death had been in the course of Chris’s fate in this life.

“ _Yes_ ,” Chris insisted. “I love you. And I never did—still don’t—say that lightly. How I wished I could say it to you every day we’ve lived together. I’ve waited years and endured horrendous things to be able to look at you now and tell you that. I love you.”

Eyes squeezed shut, Tom’s tears flowed thickly, sobbing quietly, pulled into that warm embrace, held and soothed by the man he hadn’t known he couldn’t live without.

_A soul knows a soul._

“The same goddess took pity on me, in my grief,” Chris continued. “Told me of the white stones. ‘Go deep’ she said. ‘They are near the core. I know because the roots of the trees twist and gnarl and sometimes burst from the earth, these stones twisted into their bark.’ That goddess is dormant now. Has been for centuries. I still visit her sometimes. But she’s fast asleep. Gone to us maybe forever.”

Tom asked him once more what Chris couldn’t answer before. “How many do I take?”

“You will become like me.”

“How many?”

Chris studied him, those ice blue eyes pinched with yearning and worry. “One more after this.”

“Okay.”

“You must think about this.”

“I have. I will.”

Chris kissed him, a hard, firm press of lips, and Tom inhaled through his nose, soothed by creosote and wood smoke. “I trust you. And I’ll follow you no matter what you decide.”

Tom reached for him and Chris jumped forward, his weight dropping them to the ground, the flowers spongy and cushioning their fall.

“I like being underground because it’s dark and cool and safe. The trees are safe too. And water. I can show you…if you’d like.”

“Yes,” Tom whispered. And then, “Will we be able to talk once this vision ends?”

Shaking his head, Chris blinked once. “No. Not until you fully change.”

“And then we can talk forever?”

He smiled and caught his mouth in a fevered kiss, breaking off a moment later. “Forever.”

“You have to know,” he said. “You have to know that I didn’t kill the butterfly. The first one you found. It had been floating in a pool of rainwater outside by the garden, drowned. It reminded me of the color of your eyes in sunlight, and I had to give it to you. I’m sorry if you thought I had killed it. I took extra care to gather the live ones just after, because I never want you to believe that I would deliberately harm a living creature, unless they are threatening the one I love.”

They both thought back to the gruesome scene in the meadow, the men with their bows and arrows, their knives and hateful words.

“I loved the butterflies,” Tom said quietly. “Thank you, my heart.”

“Tom,” Chris said, just so that Tom would smile, and laughing quietly together, they rested low on the ground, flowers ticking their noses, content to lie in wait for the stone’s influence to lose its potency. And when it did, when Tom felt the tug on his navel and woke again on the sofa in his living room, Chris holding him tightly, he blinked away the lingering buzz of yellow pollen on his lashes, he returned the warm embrace, thoughts on his future.

**

Very slowly, he started gathering every white stone he could find. Even though he knew he only needed to take one more to begin his transformation, Tom didn’t want to lose a single one, or risk one being found by prying strangers. Because eventually there would be strangers in this house, wondering.

He found them everywhere, over a hundred of them, and thought kindly on how obvious Chris had tried to be. But now Tom knew, and he was grateful. The knowledge he’d gained was eye opening. And all that he would have at the risk of what he would lose was worth it.

Because as each day passed, nearly a full month, Tom’s opinion of his own life and accomplishments began to sour. Things began to lose their flavor, colors dulled and sounds deafened. He thought of Chris at home and wished he were with him, this great appetite for time in his company as sudden as a wave on the sand. His work, with tedious editing of monotonous human subjects and their dreary lives was suddenly too much to bear, and he wished rather ardently to be done with it entirely. He stopped taking phone calls, not that he received very many, but he started to see very little point to it all.

Chris had said that Tom would return to him when Tom was ready. It had taken over a thousand years, but Tom felt that he was now, more than ever, ready. His life until this point had felt common, if anything, less than memorable, a passing thing. School, his few relationships, Mikael, had been unsatisfactory in the long run. His happiest moments were fleeting, always looking ahead to something that might be better, might last longer. Was it why he started drinking? Was it why he finally took that transfer at work? Was it why he thought buying a house and settling for something with a commitment that would be entirely his own was the right step at this point in his life?

Had he been looking for Chris this whole time?

And now that he’d found him, was he going to pass up a chance to spend the rest of his life, if not longer, with him?

It didn’t sit well with Tom, having the stones in his reach, witnessing each day pass, Chris’s anxious gaze on him from the foot of the bed, from the darker interior of the bathroom, from the bottom of the stairs and around every corner of his house. He was waiting. What would Tom do with his newfound knowledge? Could he give up his life to be with Chris?

The answer, when he thought about it lying in the tepid water of his bath, driving to and from work, reading over boring manuscripts, was stunningly clear.

**

Every kiss Chris placed on Tom’s neck held a new and special kind of meaning. Tom lifted his chin and let Chris mouth at his throat, shivers cascading down his spine. Sheets tossed away to the floor, only sweat between them, they moved together on the bed, Tom wrapped in Chris’s arms, legs spread wide like pale wings in the dark. Each deep thrust, each grunt and sigh, took root in Tom’s heart as proof of his correct decision.

“Yes, darling,” he moaned, rolling his hips to meet him. Sinking in, lips behind Tom’s ear, Chris breathed him in, a big hand curled in Tom’s hair, the other clamped on the thin muscle of his inner thigh. Every pump was like a spike of light in Tom’s blood, tracing his hands down Chris’s back and cupping his clenched bottom.

“Do you love me—.”

Chris plunged his tongue deep into Tom’s mouth, groaning and bending him in two for his thrusts. And laughing into the kiss, Tom wrapped his arms around Chris’s neck and rolled them so they lay on their sides, bodies writhing under the patchwork quilt of moonlight.

**

On a cold evening in December, Tom sat alone on the edge of his bed. Chris was downstairs rummaging in the kitchen, or perhaps sitting at the sink and watching the slow fall to great tufty blankets on the lawn outside. He liked doing that, watching the snow.

"Can you lift very heavy things?” Tom had asked the day before, and Chris, with eyes narrowed in question, had slowly nodded. “Will you carry something for me when I ask?” Another nod, firmer. Anything. I’ll carry anything for you.

Tom wasn’t a plumber, but after thoroughly washing the deep basic, he managed to disconnect the water pipe from the tub, the clawed-foot design making access much easier. Freestanding, it was only a matter of moving it. In the room under the stairs, he broke down Chris’s nest, heartbroken to see it go. Working diligently, he piled the pictures Chris kept in a neat stack off to the side and took the blankets and pillows upstairs and lined the tub with them. Chris, curious at the calm bustle, followed him into the bedroom.

Tom sat at the bed again and brought out a white stone from his pocket. Eyes widening, Chris crawled closer and knelt at his feet, his big hands braced on Tom’s knees. His eyes darted from the stone to Tom’s face, licking his lips in expectation. Tom smiled.

“It happened in winter before, too,” he whispered, and lifted the stone to his lips. But before he could swallow it, Chris jumped forward and kissed him fast, both inhaling at the touch.

“I love you, too,” Tom said after with a grin, and popped the stone in his mouth.

**

It was a slow thing. There were no visions and there was no traversing planes. But he felt queasy and a bit unsteady on his feet. So he stayed seated, and with slow, short breaths, he rocked in place on the bed, Chris watching him with bright and unblinking eyes. After several long, shaky minutes, feeling slightly settled, Tom nodded and led Chris into the bathroom. Chris, with relative ease, lifted the tub with a grunt and carried it down the stairs. Tom, for the most part, felt fine after taking the final stone. He gathered the old flower crowns from the windowsill and followed Chris downstairs, holding onto the rail for extra balance. They piled Tom’s books into the tub, dropping the remaining stones in as an afterthought. Everything else was left alone. Bed unmade, dishes in the sink, electric razor hanging from the ceiling fan, together they walked out the back door and through the gate that led to the field stretched out before the forest. They didn’t close the door behind them; they didn’t look back at all. Under the cover of night, with only the smallest sliver of grey still lingering on the edge of the horizon, Tom held Chris’s elbow and followed him into the trees, mist shrouding their path, closing in after them like doors of silk.

Deep into the forest they went, so many hundreds of acres of wild land, yet unclaimed by the reach of humanity, to remain savage and free. In a glade that Chris appeared to recognize and may have often visited in the years before Tom, they stopped and set the tub down between two giant oaks. And because Tom was starting to sway on his feet, Chris hurriedly emptied the tub of all the books and stones and adjusted the pillows and blankets so that Tom could lie down to rest.

He slept for days. With the trees so tall and clustered, hardly any sunlight filtered to the bottom, only a lace-like patchwork of sun spots that glittered on the mossy ground, like jewels underwater. Chris, safe from the light, crouched by the tub and waited. Straying hands cupped Tom’s face, hot with fever, limbs shaking, but he didn’t thirst and he didn’t hunger, and was content to lie there and doze.

When he woke, it was completely dark, with the moonlight patched on the ground in a reverse effect of the sun. Glowing eyes studied him from the lip of the tub, and Tom blinked, sensing more light in the air, more to see. He moaned and made to sit, scratching at an itch on his scalp. Under his wandering fingertips he felt the two nubs of newborn horns. Chris, teeth shining in the dark, grinned.

“Tom,” he said, and Tom wept from the relief to hear that voice once more.

In the weeks that followed, Chris showed him how to sink into the earth and burrow there, never suffocating, always sifting. There were many treasures to be had, and their small collection of knick-knacks began to grow in that glade they now called home, pearl necklaces and ruby rings hanging from branches, age-old trinkets to catch the shifting light. Tom stored his books in the hollows of the trees, adding the ones that Chris stole from houses nearby. With their preternatural sight, the nightscape took on entirely different tones for Tom, who often sat marveling at the fireflies and the drifting snowflakes, the butterflies sparkling with glitter and stardust. Chris showed him the giant redwood where the wood goddess had fallen into her eternal sleep, the hollow grown over by gnarled wood and vines.

“She’s in there,” Chris whispered. “Her hair grown like a cocoon around her. Sometimes she murmurs, sometimes she shifts. But she’s not woken yet. I wait for the moment to thank her for accepting my bargain to remain here for you. I’ll ask that she bless us, and keep us safe.”

Tom had touched the knotted wood, palms spread wide, and sensed her life inside the womb of the tree, this goddess who had taken pity on his Christopher, who had given them a second chance at their love. Let her rest, he thought, pressing his lips to the jagged bark, they would surely be there when she woke.

Many weeks passed and Tom was finally ready to see what had became of his house, his life. Walking together in the early morning mist, horns dotted with dew, eyes ringed with light, they paused just short of leaving the forest, gazing at his former home. Perhaps someone had finally been alerted to his absence, warned by the unnatural stillness of his house. Because it was immediately noticeable that the house was vacant once more. Had his parents come to collect his things? Had he been reported missing? Had there been search parties and flyers with his face on them? They would never have ventured as deep into the forest as where he and Chris now lived. It made no sense for them to go so far. Whatever the truth, as he and Chris stepped through the back door and into the kitchen, this place was no longer his own. Indeed it had been emptied, the rooms clear of all his things, not a single object in sight. He felt only slightly saddened by the loss, for this was his one true accomplishment that had led to the dawning of his fate. If only he could have continued living here with Chris, but there would have been no way he could afford it without continuing to work and show his face every day in normal society.

“Are you real?” Chris asked sometimes as they lay in their tub, leaves sprinkling around them. “Are you finally mine?”

Kissing his jaw, Tom whispered, “I’m yours, love. Yours and the moon’s.”

Where he slept and loved and dreamed now was better. It was simpler and freer. With their glade of book-trees and their clawed-foot tub, filled with rainwater and cemented into the ground by root trees and spindle vines, with their trinkets and their patches of sun and moonlight, with their visits to the wood goddess, whom Tom knew listened to their whispers through the cracks in the bark, with their cleansings in the springs and their escapes into the earth and up into the treetops, Tom was finally and irrevocably happy. His Christopher at his side, their couplings in the dawn and twilight and every hour in between, their nuzzles of quiet affection, their whispers and their moans, their giggles and their sighs, long pale feet rubbing together on the lip of the tub, he was free of the restraints of his old life, ready for the endless stilts of laced sunlight and butterfly flutters, deep and echoing laughter, and the earth to cradle them in their eternity.

 

Epilogue

News spread up _Estrella y Sol_ like wildfire. Surely, not again. And yet, there stood the house, empty, its front windows reflecting back the violet sky tarnished with clouds and twisting tree branches. And then there were the neighbors, Brad and Lizzie, whose twin astonished faces revealed their disbelief. Not him, too. Had the house really claimed yet another victim? A decent, promising young man who had stayed on already for almost a year, surely one of the longest tenants? Would it now sit empty for the next eight, ten, fifteen months?

It was Brad who had noticed Tom’s car had gone unmoved for more than a week. Knocking, he’d received no answer. But he wasn’t overly concerned. Maybe the man had gone on a trip, and forgotten to tell his neighbors, a responsible neighborly thing to do. But when another few days passed with no movement, he investigated a little further, discovering the back door wide open, a raccoon scratching at a cereal box for the treasure waiting within.

He, nor the police, could have ever anticipated or guessed that Tom had simply wandered out his back door and never returned. A police search concluded nothing was missing or out of place save for a few puzzling things: the back door was wide open, the bookshelf was emptied, an electric razor was found hanging from the living room ceiling fan, and the tub was missing from the upstairs bathroom. The police couldn’t make sense of it. They couldn’t have known that the lovers, after arranging blankets in the tub, had pressed the torn pictures of Tom and the dried flower crowns between book pages and piled them in after. That they had simply walked through the tall grassy field and between two trees, and disappeared. And yet they had, never to be seen again, for their private glade deep in the woods was protected by an enchantment to ward humans away, a gift from the goddess of the wood, who may have woken from her slumber after all. Perhaps her eyes were bright and glowing after her millennia of sleep.

But should there come another family to live in the house on _Estrella y Sol_ mostly everyone thought was haunted or contained a portal into the very depths of some terrible hell into which nice, unsuspecting young men fell into, they would find themselves living there quite happily – with no disturbances – for many years to come. For the lovers who had lived there before were gone away now, into the woods. Into the sky, into the ground, into the blades of grass and petals of flowers. But they were together, and the earth was their home, their refuge and their temple.

 

 

 

End.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! :)


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